“Maps to the Stars”

For a director who’s never shot a film in the States before, David Cronenberg surely wastes no energy to ease in to the process with his new effort, and aims for the heart from the get-go. In his uncanny Hollywood satire Maps to the Stars, everyone is haunted by someone. As the film incisively unleashes ghosts from the past throughout Tinseltown, drugs flow freely and egos bloat just as quickly as they deflate. Written by Bruce Wagner as a loose encapsulation of his early experiences in Hollywood, Maps to the Stars is funny and dark at equal measure (the latter meaning this isn’t entirely a departure for Cronenberg) in assembling the pieces of a handsomely twisty, yet at-times noticeably undercooked send-up to Hollywood-types. From a young limo driver-slash-actor (isn’t everyone a something-slash-an actor in Hollywood?), the star-gazer, to the aging actress, the child actor, and his eccentric parents; all players willingly oil the machine of a degenerate circle that slowly devours them all.

Our entry through the exclusive gates of Maps to the Stars is granted via the Weiss family. We first meet the family’s youngest member Benjie (exceptionally portrayed by the young Evan Bird) as the indispensable child star of a popular franchise called Bad Babysitter, by the hospital bed of one of his young fans, allegedly granting her dying wish of meeting him. Managed by his mom Christina (Olivia Williams) in her airy, minimalist-chic wardrobe and invisible makeup that scream a conceited statement of upscale cool, Benjie is on the verge of a fall or a comeback (depending how you look at it) following his recent – and of course, confidential – drug addiction and rehab at a young age. But our first impression of him is that he is a “sweet boy,” until we watch him transform into an asshole with an arrogant vocabulary years ahead of him, after embarrassing himself to his fan (by proving he doesn’t know what disease she has,) and launching into an abusive verbal attack to his agent outside the clinic as a result. Thus, we get a clear sense of whose presence on which the film will focus. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Then there is the apparent outsider Agatha (Mia Wasikowska, superbly playing up her character’s quiet creepiness), a visibly scarred burn victim who arrives in L.A. in her cover-up clothes, hiding bodily scars. She seems to be clueless about the fakeness of it all when she asks her driver (Robert Pattinson) where she can obtain a star map, acting as almost an alternate-universe reflection of Mulholland Drive’s sweet Betty-meets All About Eve’s evil Eve Harrington, in her initial naiveté. Having befriended Carrie Fisher on Twitter, she uses the connection to score a job as the assistant of aging Hollywood actress Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore, terrific as usual, diversifying her ever-growing range), an actress just a couple of flops away from becoming the Norma Desmond of her extravagant mansion. She desperately wants to resurrect her career by playing her own mom (a classic Hollywood actress, dead as a result of a mysterious fire), a role she refers to as “It’s MADE for Best Supportiiiiing,” in whiny cries to her agent. The pieces of the puzzle all fit together, as Benjie’s father happens to be Havana’s massage therapist/existential healer (honestly, this is the best way to define what John Cusack’s character does), and Agatha is none other than Benjie’s schizophrenic sister, sent away many years ago after setting their house on fire.

Despite the dark turns it takes through its subject’s cringe-worthy actions and all the innocent blood spilled throughout, Maps to the Stars somehow falls a tad short of growing into the truly shocking experience it sets the stage for. You surely feel the discomfort, but it sometimes feels like the upshot of watching a film uncomfortable in its own burned skin, camouflaging its scars like the victim at the center of its story. Walking a fine line between the comical and the frightening, it’s perhaps no surprise that the isolated sequences involving Havana and Benjie are the film’s strongest suits in their ability to organically summarize the Hollywood experience as a whole. It’s when the story forcefully tries to become full circle towards the end that the whole thing crumbles and goes off the rails. Still, Maps to the Stars is the work of a stellar ensemble, fired up by the script’s sharp dialogue. Cronenberg may not burn the town to the ground, but he surely sets it on a hay fire to start. But that’s OK. He is new around here, after all.