Maps to the Stars

Plot synopsis:
Agatha arrives in Los Angeles and employs limousine driver Jerome to take her to the site of the former house of child star Benjie Weiss. Agatha has severe burns to her face and body, and takes a copious amount of medication. Benjie visits a child suffering from non-Hodgkin lymphoma in the hospital; however, the girl later dies. Benjie’s father, Dr. Stafford Weiss, is a TV psychologist who is treating aging actress Havana Segrand for abuse she suffered at the hands of her deceased mother, also an actress. Havana’s agent struggles to get Havana a role in a remake of her mother’s film Stolen Waters. Havana routinely hallucinates about the deceased younger version of her mother.
Benjie and his mother, Cristina, negotiate a role for Benjie in a film as his comeback after drug rehabilitation. At the suggestion of Carrie Fisher, Havana hires Agatha, whom she had met on Twitter, as a personal assistant. Agatha continues to see Jerome, and a romance forms, though Jerome appears resistant at first. Stafford learns through Havana that Agatha has returned to L.A. Agatha is Stafford and Cristina's daughter – however, they shun her completely, with Cristina breaking down at the thought of Agatha contacting Benjie.
Using Havana’s role in Stolen Waters to gain access to the production lot, Agatha visits Benjie on set. A schizophrenic, Agatha tells him that she has returned from a sanatorium to make amends for setting the fire that burned her and nearly killed him when he was seven. When Stafford learns Agatha visited Benjie, he visits her in a rage and warns her to leave L.A.
Benjie breaks his sobriety, getting high on GHB, and carelessly shoots the dog of his only friend. Agatha visits her mother, Cristina, to make amends. Cristina reveals that she and Stafford are brother and sister, making Agatha and Benjie children of incest – though Cristina insists it was unbeknownst to them at the time. Stafford comes home, and when Agatha tells him she knows about their familial relations, Stafford violently beats her, until Cristina intervenes. During the altercation, Agatha steals Cristina’s wedding ring. On set, Benjie is haunted by the girl from the hospital, and, during a hallucination, he strangles his young co-star. The child survives, though Benjie is now to be replaced in the film.
Havana requests Jerome as a driver and seduces him in the backseat of his parked limo in the driveway of her home, as Agatha watches from the window. Havana enters the house and berates Agatha for her poor performance at work and then verbally humiliates her when she finds that the girl has stained her expensive couch with menstrual blood. Agatha beats Havana to death with one of her awards.
Stafford returns home to see Cristina on fire outside near the pool. Benjie goes home, finds his father in a catatonic state and steals his ring. He then reunites with Agatha at the ruins of their old home that Agatha had burned down, and, on the fireplace hearth, the siblings/cousins perform an impromptu wedding ceremony with their parents' wedding rings. In order to commit suicide, they take an extreme amount of Agatha’s pills together, before lying down to watch the stars.
=== Underlying theme ===
Throughout the film, liberal quotings from Paul Éluard's poem Liberté meander "through each of the characters' lives," creating an underlying mantra for the film.

Tags: psychological, murder, dramatic, violence, haunting, satire, storytelling, sentimental

Review:
It has been called 'narratively unwieldy' by the 'tomato-meter', and the events in the latter stages of the film are certainly dramatic and in quick succession, however Maps to the Stars is a great, grotesque satire from David Cronenberg, who could also be described in such terms!Julianne Moore is brilliantly unhinged and crude as Havana Segrand, a deeply warped, neurotic actress who's haunted by the vivid apparition of her actress mother Clarice Taggart (Sarah Gadon) who died in a fire.
The ick abounds in "Maps to the Stars," a fascinating film that must be something like what watching a grisly car accident in slow motion would feel like.Julianne Moore won her Oscar for the bland and award-bait "Still Alice" last year, but THIS is the movie for which she should have won.
Swirling around these two characters are plot lines involving a troubled child star, lots and lots of incest, and enough frantic desperation to fill a sequel to "Mulholland Drive." Whenever I see a movie like this, I immediately wonder how true it is vs.
Before talking about "Maps to the Stars", I have to say that, two years ago, I had already seen and deeply appreciated David Cronenberg's "Cosmopolis": this particular movie, as its ideal sequel, represent not only, as many people may suggest, a critic towards the Hollywood society, but a consideration about a larger group of people.
You would think that the soap operatic sentiments (incest, famous mothers, mysterious personal assistants, haughty child stars, and more) of Maps to the Stars would give it an enjoyably melodramatic edge, but instead of being an absurdly funny Hollywood satire, it mopes along with writhing cynicism until characters begin to set themselves on fire and get bludgeoned to death.
The characters are nasty, the story lines are nasty, and so are the expensive furnishings; you probably haven't seen a Tinsel Town film this contemptuous, but you certainly have had better times at the movies before.
Christina, mother to Benjie and wife to Stafford, acts as her son's agent, clinging to his fame as she tries to find meaning in her empty, sad life.Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore), one of Stafford's many patients, is an aging, irrelevant actress whose entire career has been overshadowed by her legendary mother (Sarah Gadon), who prematurely died in a house fire in the 1970s.
Making her way into town is the enigmatic Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), a young woman with troubling burns on the side of her body; she finds a job as Havana's personal assistant, but her dangerous connection with the Weiss family leaves her slightly cursed.If I've explained the plot well (and I probably haven't), then Maps to the Stars might sound enticing, carrying the same self-awareness of Twin Peaks while retaining the screeching satire of Sunset Boulevard.
I desperately wanted to like Maps to the Stars, (Julianne Moore and Mia Wasikowska are certainly two of Hollywood's most talented actresses and Cronenberg is a consistently interesting director), but it's much too unlikable to be anything other than dreary.
The ending, which is essentially a series of disturbing character offings, seems like an act of haste instead of a necessity.But if Maps to the Stars isn't as delicious as I wish it was, it never stops being watchable, in part to the cast (a round-table of fantastic performances) and in part to Cronenberg's unwaveringly creepy handling of it all.
It was not even entertaining in its awfulness.Talking about the film after (which is what one does while standing in lines at festivals), no one could figure out how Julianne Moore and John Cusack and other fine actors could have let themselves in for this.If you want to see a decent send-up of Hollywood, go back and watch The Player..
If you can sympathise with the following characters, you probably will like the movie:*Benji, ex-junkie teenager TV show star, jealous about child actors; *Cristina and Stafford, couple of weirdos parents, exploiting said teenage junkie; *Agatha, homicidal schizophrenic girl stalking her family; *Havana, washed up movie actress consumed by the desire of playing her mother's part in a remake.On the other hand, if you think that the rich are different from you and I and you find it difficult to feel empathy for a "poor" kid who will earn only 6 million per season instead of 8, you might not get the point of this flaccid tale.
The movie stars Julianne Moore, John Cusack, Robert Pattinson , Mia Wasikowska, Olivia Williams, Sarah Gadon and Evan Bird in pivotal roles.
If Cronenberg and team can somehow secure a short theatrical run for the film in the US by the end of the year, it will more or less guarantee an Oscar nomination for Moore—her fifth, overall, but first in over a decade.While the real star of the show is Julianne Moore, the acting all around is quite solid.
Based on prior reviews, i was expecting a mediocre drama that was going to be more boring than anything, but "Maps to the Stars" turned out to be a deep, dark and mentally provocative film, that mastered the art of building atmosphere and capturing the attention of the viewer.While the large majority of people who watch this will find it to be a highly estranged and seemingly pretentious affair, lying beneath the surface is a deeply esoteric premise seeming with gritty realism, and plenty of witty humor strewn throughout.Mia Wasikowska was excellent as always, and i could not help but draw parallels between her performance in "Maps to the Stars" and the movie "Stoker," which is an equally dark and gripping movie, making the two a must watch in precession.I loved the atmosphere that was built up in this movie, it was teeming with high strangeness that was perfectly executed with the sound, set and bizarre, yet all too real storyline."Maps to the Stars" is a more watchable and entertaining movie than Cronenberg's prior movie "Cosmopolis", and while it may not appeal to the masses; for any 'cinephile,' this movie is simply a must watch!9/10.
Other than the really bad makeup on John Cusack in some scenes, making him look like something from a community theater production, there really is nothing wrong...it's just no good.What we do have is the story of the most psychopathic, messed up family in the history of mankind.Not one character has a redeeming quality.
(Wagner's script is as tough and bitter as old lemons, but film-biz insider jokes help sweeten things up.) His stars in place, Cronenberg then starts sketching constellations, making connections between his characters until, with a sickened lurch, we realize the exact nature of the join-the-dots pictures that are being revealed.
As often happens with Cronenberg, we therefore wind up with a few risible and unbelievable points that makes the film look like a Z movie, just thinking about the scene with the dog and the reactions of the characters, or the final confrontation between Havana and Agatha — and Julianne Moore's terrible acting — is cringeworthy.It's real shame because the writing quality only serves a scenario whose plot is badly defined and weighed down by some very dispensable elements..
Daivd Cronenberg's 'Maps to the Stars' tells the convergent stories of several different characters in Hollywood: at first it appears as if this is one of those films about discrete lives that form a fine web of faint touches, but in fact it turns out that (most) of the characters have serious history, and are coming back together after events that have driven them apart.
The tradition is well inscribed in film and has on occasion produced interesting, albeit always slightly uncomfortable portraits.On some level, a director has to see himself as an outsider in order to pull off the trick and feign the objectivity required to cut open the Hollywood beast for our amusement and pleasure.But watching movies about Hollywood demands an acquired taste and I wouldn't blame anyone for showing disinterest at seeing what the flatulent gods of Mount Olympus look like riding the porcelain Honda.David Cronenberg's "Maps to the Stars" is on the money for its depiction of the Hollywood package; outrageous as all this behavior may seem to the casual viewer, it is dead on!
His archetype is inconspicuously missing from the satire, and yet, at this point in time, star directors themselves can be as grotesque as the actors they love to complain about.The film is intriguing - like watching a train wreck is intriguing - and it holds up for most of its narrative, offering surprises and payoffs on the mysteries it sets up along the way.I am critical of one contrived trajectory, that of the Havana character (played flawlessly by the great Julianne Moore) whose own karmic path confused me as an audience by shuffling around some clumsy metaphors that failed to really connect with the larger puzzle as a piece of "clean" screen writing.
The acting is excellent as in most Cronenberg films (Julianne Moore is a standout, but when isn't she), but I hope I can get this movie out of my system soon..
There's also a Hollywood director who will trade parts for sex, an entire clique of vapid child stars who enable Evan Bird's character, and equally shallow rivals.Like "The Player" which shifts gears midway from its broad ensemble satire to the perfect crime; or "Mullholland Drive" which segues to a Lesbian love story than a mobius strip; this film's satirical elements get overwhelmed midway for a more gruesome tragedy which makes the ending feel like something that's been tacked on to cover a superfluous detour from what was originally a better film..
Julianne Moore is very good as an actress with serious psychological issues, and her character having a desire to play her own mother really speaks for itself."Maps to the Stars" is an adequate thriller.
The latest film from director David Cronenberg, Maps to the Stars, is a satire on Hollywood in some ways and a bizarre drama in others.
Some of the cast of characters includes a psychologically damaged, fading actress at the tail end of her career trying to star in a movie remake which originally starred her own, more successful, mother whom she is obsessed with; then there is a 13 year old child actor at the opposite stage of his career who is just out of rehab and has serious behaviour issues; his father is a prominent self-help guru who can't even guide his own offspring, the other of which is a girl who has been newly released from a psychiatric hospital and is the catalyst and link between all of the characters.This is another somewhat challenging drama from Cronenberg.
Whether you're going to enjoy David Cronenberg's 'Maps to the Stars' really depends on what kind of mood you're in and what sort of film you're looking for.
And the two families' lives get intertwined when a young woman is released for mental incarceration and gets a job with the other.It's a pretty sterling cast – John Cusack, Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska are all prominent, but it's Julianne Moore who steals the show in every scene.
I must say that David Cronenberg has made one heck of a drama film called "Maps to the Stars" which is a satire on the downside and dark parts of fame showing that life is so complex and that our pasts can haunt us and affect us for a lifetime.
His wife Cristina (Olivia Williams) is hardly a stay-at-home mom as she manages the career of her 13-year-old child-star son Benjie (Evan Bird), who's looking to make a comeback after a stint in rehab.Connecting them all is the mysterious Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), who arrives in town and befriends a Hollywood limo driver/aspiring actor/aspiring screenwriter named Jerome (Robert Pattinson, from Cronenberg's earlier 2012 "Cosmopolis").
Agatha also carries with her some dark personal secrets - a number of very troubling, very dark personal secrets - that will certainly unravel as she ingratiates herself more deeply within the lives of the increasingly desperate and unhinged Havana, and the highly dysfunctional Weiss family."Maps to the Stars" is a confounding film, yes - but not in the way some of Cronenberg's earlier reality-distorting head-scratchers were, like "Videodrome," "Naked Lunch," or "eXistenZ." No, "Maps to the Stars" is more perplexing in its multiple, but intersecting story lines, back-stories, and characters.
And Robert Pattinson's Jerome appears to be the only sane character in the film, and the only one who comes out of this film relatively unscathed - physically and psychologically.) You aren't really meant to like any of the characters, as that is in line with the film's portrayal of the insulated depravity and overall insanity of Hollywood fame and the resulting psychological traumas endured by many of the principal cast members."Maps to the Stars" is certainly up there with many of David Cronenberg's other work.
In what is the second movie I see from David Cronenberg, Maps To The Stars offers us the dark side of Hollywood.
One of the Most Bizarre Movies You'll Ever See. Map to the Stars (2014) *** (out of 4) Incredibly bizarre spoof (I think) of Hollywood about Agatha Weiss (Mia Wasikowska), a burned young woman who comes to Hollywood and quickly gets a job for actress Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore) who is trying to win a major role.
While all of this is going on Agatha becomes friends with a limo driver (Robert Pattinson) but her real mission is to get back into her family, which consisted of her younger brother (Evan Bird), a current popular actor, who she earlier tried to kill and her parents (John Cusack, Olivia Williams).If my plot description makes MAP TO THE STARS sound weird and crazy then you'll be happy to know that I really couldn't do the story justice so the film itself is actually much weirder.
Cronenberg your so much better then this.Maps to the Stars follows the lives of the Weiss family - pure Hollywood royalty - including the father, a self-help guru, mother who dotes on 13-year-old Benji - fresh out of rehab and daughter Agatha a recently-released pyromaniac.I heard some mix things from Maps to the Stars and that's mostly the reviews it got and yes I do read other critics reviews and other websites like Rotten Tomatoes, but at the end of the day you can't trust RT sometimes, I mean Sharknado get's a 82% ?.
Kind of a cliché Cronenberg.The other real reason I watch this movie is because of Julianne Moore performance as she won Best Actress at The Cannes Film Festival and Anne Dorval was also nominated but didn't win.
Overall Maps to the Star is a movie that could have been something good coming from a director like David Cronenberg.
That's to be expected in a movie about Hollywood, but Julianne Moore's character is like a knife against your face.In the end I thought that it was a good movie, but not a great one.
Despite that, Maps to the Stars is a thoroughly entertaining blast of entertainment from the great David Cronenberg and features amazing performances from the entire cast including an amazing turn for Julianne Moore..
On occasion, there has been "A History of Violence" or "Eastern Promises," but usually, it's more "Crash" and "Dead Ringers." "Maps to the Stars" did not help me become more of a fan.Yet another film that made no real sense to me and left me wondering..."WTF did I just watch?" I really hoped this would be a satirical look at Hollywood through the eyes of a Canadian nut job, but instead, what could have been a truly disturbing and great film spiralled into typical Cronenberg incomprehensible ridiculousness.However, Pattinson?
In the heart of Hollywood, Havana Segrand(Julianne Moore), an aging actress tries to play the role of a remake of a film her mother starred in.
But what makes Maps to the Stars for me such a captivating experience is that these are people in some earth-bound reality, but they are for the most part consumed by their own sense of self-worth either due to their pasts and legacy in Hollywood (Julianne Moore's Havana with her deceased star mother; John Cusack as a best-selling kooky New-Age-like author), or those who are getting subsumed by it or those around (Evan Bird's young actor character Benjie, and his beleaguered mother played by Olivia Williams).It's a complicated film in ways that include it being a ghost story.
While the characters in this story, eventually revolving around the reappearance of Mia Wasikowska's character Agatha, who was away for years after starting a fire and nearly killing her family (Cusack, Williams, Bird), it's a strange mixture of just cutting, acidic satire on not so much the industry but what it does to people's self-worth - the parts to obtain, ageism, sex appeal, who's f***ing who over - and also with this sense of other spiritual beings messing with Benjie and Havana.I think what struck me the most was how straightforward Cronenberg presents these ghosts.
Map to the Stars was worth it to me to see Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikovska, and John Cusack act well in very interesting roles.
Cronenberg has collected a great ensemble cast featuring Julianne Moore, Robert Pattinson, Olivia Williams, John Cusack and Mia Wasikowska in a film that explores the seamy underbelly of Hollywood, and how quite literally incestuous it is.
The movie stars Mia Wasikowska, Evan Bird, Julianne Moore, John Cusack, Olivia Williams and Robert Pattinson.
Now, as for whether their performances lead you to believe the film is worth your time or not, look below.Characters & StoryThe three main story lines are: Havana Segrand's (Julianne Moore) which deals with an actress who desperately wants to be in the remake of her mother's biggest film, perhaps in pursuit of closure; one young woman named Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), trying to make amends with Dr. Stafford Weiss (John Cusack), Havana's reiki therapist; and one child star named Benjie (Evan Bird) who feels this new kid Roy (Sean Robertson), is stealing his spotlight.But what the overall film is about is the two actors, Havana and Benjie, making a comeback.