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STARDOM Send This Review to a Friend
Denys Arcand, whose Canadian films have repeatedly held contemporary life up to a critical lens ("The Decline of the American Empire" and "Jesus of Montreal"), is at it again with "Stardom," a satirical broadside against the upside down values in society and the crassness that has permeated so much of what passes for communication. The film, the opening night selection at the Toronto International Film Festival and now in commercial release, has at its core the life of a beautiful model who is discovered and shamelessly exploited both commercially and by the men in her life.
Arcand puts on quite a show in his documentary style, jangling camera approach, enabling us to follow the story through the eyes of how television records her rise to fame with all of its empty glamour and resulting emotional pain. It is a flashy, good-looking production, pumped-up by the hyped false enthusiasm generated by young women commentators at glitzy openings, the vicious talk show hosts who solicit confrontation as their shtick and judgments that make a model's trip to the hospital more important news than throats slashed en mass in Algeria. The writer-director, with a screenplay co-authored by J. Jacob Potashnik, has a sharp eye for the ironies, the abuse and the descent of public taste as well as for all of the superficiality that goes with fame.
The film begs for tightening; a bit of the party reportage would be enough, but Arcand piles it on, as if unable to drop scenes that he must have enjoyed filming. Negatives aside, this is a hefty film about matters that count and its filled with funny set-ups that will make you laugh as well as moments that may make you cringe with feeling for the protagonist.
Screen newcomer Jessica Pare is a knockout as Tina Menzhal, who is plucked from a women's hockey team in Cornwall, Ontario, to a modeling career that makes her famous and provides a meal ticket for Philippe Gascon, played by Charles Berling, a photographer who claims to have discovered her. Another fashion photographer, portrayed by film director and playwright Robert Lepage, devotes himself to chronicling Tina's life. There are other showy performances by Dan Aykroyd as a restaurateur who caters to the chic and leaves his wife for Tina and Frank Langella as the Canadian ambassador to the United Nations who marries Tina.
Pare captures Tina's vulnerability and conflicting feelings nicely, although we don't get to know as much about her as we might like because--and this is a point of the film--nobody seems very interested in what she has to say about anything, even when she is asked questions on television. But Pare makes her likable and it is always pleasing to the eye to follow her on a journey that manages to entertain us while making its acerbic points. A Lions Gate Films release.
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