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kristophers wrote:The angle of the "ghost story", the characters losing reality and the more surrealist elements of the film are really poorly done and don't mix well with the raw satire on display. You will be able to guess the twist and turns a mile away.

Yeah, this was a bit of a mess. It felt like everything got thrown at the wall and nothing really stuck. I get the sense there was quite the edit, as much of the plot was neither fully fleshed out or satisfactorily tied up. The pacing seemed off as well. The film feels like a incredibly long 110 minutes.

Julianne Moore was great, but that's no surprise as the role is perfect for her.

Maps to the Stars is a messy film, one which plays fast and loose with a half dozen half-formed ideas and still works in spite of its lackadaisical commitment to its own grotesqueries. This is the best Bret Easton Ellis adaptation ever made (and of course he had nothing to do with it), with such consistently cheerful vulgarity in concept and practice. I agree with zedz' earlier comments, if you're going to this for a Hollywood satire, you're going to be miserable. But as a ridiculously mean-spirited excuse to wallow in some truly loathsome characters and scenarios, it has the good sense to go all-in and disregard any nascent notions of good taste or respectability. It's the kind of film where you can't really argue with anyone who hated it on the same grounds that makes it such a success!

Revisiting this thread after the CRIMES OF THE FUTURE news and I think I agree with a lot of kristopher's general take at the same time that I don't think it is just Cronenberg that held this film back. I think it is an ugly, messy script from Wagner and delivered in ugly, messy fashion by Cronenberg and Suschitzky. Still, there are enough interesting elements in the script, in the performances, and in Cronenberg's methods that I couldn't help but find it involving, even if I never want to watch it again.

The flat digital look with absolutely terrible lighting is a real low for Suschitzky, to the point that I can't help but wonder if there was some intentionality here in making Hollywood look as ugly as possible with its current tools and approach, or something. He did good work immediately before MAPS and a couple decent-looking things after, so I have to think it was a bit of a fluke, intentional or not.