A Masterpiece!

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I didn't know much about this film before reading about it, to be honest, I just remembered the title and that critics gave it positive reviews, so that was enough for me to give it a try, directed by David Cronenberg (Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly). Basically the Weiss family are current Hollywood royalty, father Dr. Stafford Weiss (John Cusack) is a celebrity psychotherapist to the stars, but more famous than him seems to be his bad boy thirteen-year-old son Benjie (Evan Bird), star of the hit movie Bad Babysitter. The sequel is currently filming, it is a comeback of sorts for Benjie, following his stint in drug rehab, his career is managed by his mother Christina (Olivia Williams), she is also Hollywood royalty herself, her actress mother Clarice Taggart (Sarah Gadon) died years ago in a house fire. Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore) is a middle-aged actress past her prime, she is hoping to remake the movie Stolen Waters, playing the role made famous by her own mother, also Clarice, who received an Oscar nomination. Havana has been spending time in therapy, as she felt that Clarice abused her, and she has haunting visions of her mother, but Havana also has emotional issues related to her declining career and how she is now perceived in Hollywood. Through a loose connection with Carrie Fisher, Havana hires new Hollywood arrival Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) as her personal assistant, Agatha has severe burn scars across her face and body that she tries to cover up. Agatha begins a friendship and possible relationship with an aspiring actor and writer Jerome Fontana (Robert Pattinson), he is working as a limousine driver until he gets his big break, he uses whatever life experience to work on his movie career. Agatha is in fact part of the Weiss family, she is schizophrenic and has returned from a sanatorium, she was the person who set the house on fire that killed Clarice, so for years Benjie has wanted nothing to do with her. In the end, after many issues are brought out into the open between the characters, Havana humiliates Agatha until she beats the actress to death with one of her own awards, Cristina is set on fire near the swimming pool and Stafford is left in a catatonic state, Benjie and Agatha reunite at the ruins of their old home that burned down, and they commit suicide together taking an extreme amount of pills together, before lying down to watch the stars. Also starring Kiara Glasco as Cammy. Moore is excellent as the faded star wanting to regain her stardom, Bird is great as the Justin Bieber like child diva, and there is terrific support from Wasikowska, Williams and Cusack. This is definitely in the same vibe of movies looking at the dark side of Hollywood, like Mommie Dearest and Sunset Boulevard, it is poignant, surreal and twisted, a fascinating and interesting satirical drama. Good!

A tour into the heart of a Hollywood family chasing celebrity, one another and the relentless ghosts of their pasts. Maps to the Stars is another weird looking movie from director David Cronenberg but unlike Cosmopolis this film has a cast of great actors and yet they are getting wasted in this black comedy, satire of a film that goes nowhere with the only actor being really good is Julianne Moore but besides that everyone else is just there John Cusack is a jerk in the whole film, Robert Pattinson is kind of the same, Olivia Williams is kind of a mixed bag and Evan Bird alongside Mia Wasikowska are just weird and insane. Wanna see a great Cronenberg film? Go watch The Fly it has great actors, performances and story 5/10.

Is Maps to the Stars a dark comedy? A pithy satire? Whatever it is, it's a refreshingly entertaining movie to counter David Cronenberg's prior Cosmopolis, which was so dense and boring I had a hard time believing anyone directed it, let alone one of my favorite directors. Maps to the Stars recalls Mulholland Dr., a noir self- analysis of Hollywood's worst parts.We have John Cusack, who seems to be playing a character that helped him warm up to play the adult Brian Wilson in Love & Mercy, with his brain so addled we're never sure even he knows what he'll do next. And his wife, played by Olivia Williams, is cunning enough to pretend she cares about her son, Benji (Evan Bird), because he's a revenue stream as the teenage star of the Bad Babysitter movies. The funniest moment in film I've seen in a long time is when Benji is filming his Bad Babysitter sequel at a children's camp, where he pulls out a wood knot in the wall to the girls' room and turns to his younger friend, explaining now they can "see everything," which elicits, "Oh, boy! I wanna see her . . . vabina."Bad seeds lead to bad family trees, and the Weiss family started off bad with incest producing rotten offspring. The bad mojo flows down the branches just as it does with the descendants of the mythological Tantalus. Benji is a thoughtless, spoiled brat with nearly no friends, and Agatha is a schizophrenic with murderous tendencies.The movie has a connective poem, Liberté by Paul Eluard, which is an ode to liberty written during the Nazi occupation of France. But in the movie, the poem seems to be a dedication to death as a way to escape a hectic, or even boring, life. The characters all seem filled with a nihilistic dread and an inherent need to put on a happy face for their fans.You can't get old in Hollywood, and if you have trouble, there's pills, therapists, and personal assistants to help. And if you get into trouble, money and power can cover it all up. Or you can end it all just like Romeo and Juliet did.

Maps to the Stars is a relatively strong but somehow disturbing view of the life of Hollywood stars. Although, if that was actually the purpose of the movie, it should have a broader scope and less self indulgence.Anyway...this is the story of a strange family where, without their knowledge, a brother and a sister met, married, and have 2 children, a boy and a girl. The girl sets their house on fire () and they sent her to a far far away clinic until she was 18. Although the family (the 2 parents, and their son who turned to a star child actor) are very successful financially, they are very dysfunctional as a family and as persons.The movie is shot brightly and that is something that I liked, but the pace is inconsistent. Overall it has a surreal feel especially because the purposely blunt performance of Mia Wasikowska.Julianne Moore performance is a little over the top but it is effective. Evan Bird as the 13 yo spoiled child star gives a solid performance.David Cronenberg always tries to provoke, so expect some male frontal nudity, lots of screaming, and you even get to see Julianne Moore ...fart a few times while on toilet with constipation. Also the price for the ...feces of a movie star costs around $3000 each.Overall: For the purpose of showing a glimpse at least of the Hollywood madness this surreal movie is effective. For that purpose though, there are other movies out there, deeper and with more levels than this.