Maps to the Stars – a film by David Cronenberg

Maps to the Stars – a film by David Cronenberg

Watching Maps to the Stars is like reading American Psycho – the horrific book by Brett Easton Ellis famed for depicting a “master of the universe” banker who gets his kicks by murdering women. Both Maps and American Psycho are brutal yet also extremely compelling. In the past David Cronenberg has wowed his audiences with many works that include his remake of The Fly and A History of Violence (perhaps his most accessible film) but here he takes Bruce Wagner’s brilliant, acerbic script and confronts all taboos head on. Where will Cronenberg strike next?

The taboos are too numerous to list – and there’s no point spoiling the fun – but safe to say there’s a load of incest. Wagner’s script has a host of clever and pointed lines like “You know what hell is – a world without narcotics” which evokes a Hollywood version of Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Hell is other people”.

Cronenberg extracts superb performances from all the actors. The central Hollywood representations are the ageing actress and the teen star who are played to perfection by Julianne Moore and Evan Bird (Bird is remembered for Tom Larson in the American version of TV show The Killing). Moore rightly won a Palme d’Or at Cannes for her role which contains the right mixture of horror and humour. Bird, as he walks his 12 steps of rehab and refers to his auditions as essentially urine tests, excels in his portrayal of a teen monster.

Maps works as an expose of Hollywood. Everything and everyone is destructive and, as usual, the common pursuit is fame and greed. However, the film hastens to show that everyone can also receive their own “get out of jail free” card but only at a fatal cost.