Starlet | Movie Review

You probably never heard of Sean Baker. I never heard of him either until I watched his latest project, Starlet. He wrote and directed it. I immediately researched him simply because his depiction of people on the fringes of society in this film is so sublime and non sentimental that I just had to know about him.

The story is that of Jane (Dree Hemingway), a Florida transplant in the San Fernando Valley of California. She lives with her dog, Starlet, and two seedy roommates, Melissa and Mikey. At a yard sale, Jane buys an old thermos from an elderly woman that turns out to be filled with money. After one shopping spree where she spends just a minimal amount of the cash, she feels guilty and immediately tries to return it to Sadie (Besedka Johnson), but the cranky old woman slams the door in her face.

Jane tries to worm her way into Sadie?s life. She pays Sadie?s cab driver to leave so she can pick her up at the grocery store. She shows up, unannounced, at Sadie?s weekly bingo games. Starlet lets us know immediately this is not your typical young person meets old person film and they both learn from each other type of nonsense. Jane is in the porn industry, which she keeps secret. Sadie even goes so far as to mace Jane when she becomes suspicious of her intentions. Sadie is not a sweet old woman, full of life lessons. She has demons and is very stuck in her ways. She has no interest in becoming friends with this random younger woman who appeared out of nowhere. Their relationship is honest and never schmaltzy.

Jane and Sadie are both keeping secrets from each other, and seemingly from the audience as well. The film allows the viewers to discover everything slowly. It demands just a little bit from its audience in that it doesn?t feel the need to beat anything like a dead horse. There are blink and you miss it moments of dialogue that will leave you with all the information you need to know about Jane and her mother.

The film?s acting feels unpromted and organic, which works perfectly as our two leads seem to flow right into character. Hemingay has the cheerful appeal of someone like Emma Stone, but with a bit more unease and courage. She immediately draws a connection with the viewer, and in a lesser actress? hands, I?m not sure that graphic sex scene would have worked. Johnson, to my utter astonishment, has never been cast in a film before. This is her debut performance, and it?s a knockout. She gives us a fully fleshed out woman who has lived her entire life before we even get to know her.

The relationship between Jane and Sadie, as well as the film itself, is fascinating. It?s one of the most accurate reflections of life I?ve seen on film this year, in that it?s comical when it needs to be, but so completely poignant as well. There is too much of a polarization in the way this film is made to get embraced by a mass audience, but if you?re the type of viewer who likes being rewarded by smart filmmaking, Starlet is an intelligent film with a powerful and unexpected climax. Above all, Starlet is a strange character study of two individuals? realization that youth truly is wasted on the young.

A

Source: http://www.listsandgrades.com/?p=3693

seal seal and heidi klum drew peterson untouchable herman cain south carolina palmetto rob lowe sanctum