Maps to the Stars

Starring: Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, John Cusack, Robert Pattinson and Evan Bird

Directed by: David Cronenberg

Rating: ★★½

There are some films that I enjoy, and then am instantly enraged by, because they are ruined by an absolutely awful ending.

Maps to the Starsis one of these films.

Havana is desperate for fame...

Although the movie is strange, disturbing and at times challenging, for the most part it is actually a pretty decent drama, ignoring that terrible actress Mia Whateverthehellhersurnameis. Then it destroys everything that makes it great by tacking on an over the top, awkward and stupidly sensational ending, just to be explosively controversial and shocking

Havana hires Agatha as her maid...

Although much of the movie is centred on an excellent storyline about Havana (Moore), an aging actress desperate to salvage her ailing career, the main drive of the story is unfortunately focused on Agatha (Wasi-wasi-kowski), an annoying burn victim who arrives in Los Angeles to reunite with her brother Benjie (Bird) after being banished by her father Stafford (Cusack).  

The fact that stupid actress Mia Wasi-wasi-kova once again plays the same character she played in that piece of shit movie Stoker angered me greatly, and made me want to reach into the screen and slap her in the face for continuing to exist in the film industry.

I really, really can't stand Mia Wasikowska- she's such an awful awful actress!!

She’s just so awful, and I don’t know why she is still being cast in things when she’s clearly terrible.

The acting from the rest of the cast is really strong, with Moore giving an outstanding performance, Cusack being understatedly despicable and Pattinson giving a great turn as creepy limo driver Jerome. It’s such a shame that the film didn’t just focus on Havana, as she is a great character who deserves much more screen time and could have easily carried the entire movie on her shoulders. 

They should have made it just about her. 

Pattinson doesn't get much screen time, but he proves that he's a decent actor.

Maps to the Starsis an odd movie, as it mixes together themes of the superficiality of fame with a ghost story, as well as with an incest subplot that is entirely unnecessary. But even keeping these poor choices in mind, up until the finale, I really enjoyed the film, and would have given it four stars, had it not been completely ruined by the elaborately hyperbolic ending that literally bludgeons the audience to death for the sake of being ‘edgy’ and ‘outrageous’.

If the ending had have been more in keeping with the rest of the movie’s realistic but heightened tone, then I would have said that Maps to the Stars was one of the better movies of the year.

Maps to the Stars should have been The Havana Movie.

But sadly, just like that terrible film And Then There Will Of Course Be Some Blood, the melodramatic finale takes the film to a new place- the realm of stupidity- and almost completely ruins everything that comes before it.

Maps to the Starscould have been great, if only it had focused on the horrible characters desperately scrabbling for fame whilst simultaneously being destroyed by it.

Benjie is a product of his horrible parents...

Unfortunately, because David Cronenberg still wants to feel relevant by being perverse, he ruined a film that didn’t need anything graphically disturbing to make it unsettling and profound.

The characters themselves are disquieting enough because they seem so real, so why ruin it by adding an extra dimension of hyperbole?