"Stars At Noon" -- Movie Review

 

At the end of the opening weekend of The 60^th New York Film Festival, I attended the North American Premiere of the new thriller by Claire Denis, “Stars At Noon”. 

Synopsis

When a journalist is trapped overseas, her sudden relationship with a mysterious stranger may help her find a way out – but when the government intercedes, will they suddenly find their life in danger?

Story

In the height of the global Covid pandemic, Trish (Margaret Qualley) finds herself stranded in Nicaragua.  An American, she aspires to a career in journalism, but has been encountering tough going trying to get her career started.  When she originally arrived in Managua, she had press credentials – but they were revoked when she wrote an unflattering piece about the government.  She’s been trying to pitch freelance travel pieces to various publications, but thus far, no takers.  At this point, she’d like to return home to America – unfortunately, the Nicaraguan government didn’t take too kindly to her journalistic style and has withheld her passport. 

Stuck in a country on the verge of revolution with an unstable government, Trish does just about the only thing she can do to survive:  this hard-drinking woman sells her body to anyone who can pay.  In some cases, she’s selective – offering herself up to men in powerful positions with the government who might be able to pull some strings for her.  In other cases, she pursues men of means who might be able to afford a little bit more – and that’s how she met Daniel (Joe Alwyn), a British businessman who works for an oil company (so he claims).  Despite his professional dealings in this country, he also wants to leave but the Costa Rican authorities are making it difficult for him to do so.

When things become untenable for both Trish and Daniel, they sneak out of Managua and try to make their way to the Costa Rican border – they appear to be well on their way to succeeding until they are confronted by a CIA Agent (Benny Safdie) who is intent on derailing their plans.  Specifically, they don’t really care about Trish – Daniel is their main target because they believe he’s trying to interfere in the upcoming Nicaraguan elections.  The U.S. government knows that he’s up to something that will be problematic when it comes to America’s relationship with the Nicaraguan government – whoever that turns out to be after the upcoming elections.  Will both Trish and Daniel be able to make it out of Nicaragua alive? 

Review

“Stars At Noon” has an intriguing concept, but its abstract nature makes the story hard to follow.  Instead, perhaps the most satisfying quality to it is its atmosphere; basically, you’re watching a spy drama with overtones of a romance doomed to fail in a mysterious, potentially dangerous environment.  If that’s enough for you, then you might enjoy this movie because keeping up with the plot can be something of a challenge here.  Whom to root for and when can change from moment to moment; this can be equally confusing and interesting, but ultimately frustrating to the point of making you want to give up on the film.    

On a positive note, “Stars At Noon” is fun not just because of the espionage element to it but also because it’s quite sexy.  As Trish, Qualley oozes a licentious nature that is absolutely intoxicating; the character of Trish is rather free with her body – both in terms of showing it and sharing with others.  This isn’t slut-shaming; if anything, it’s slut-praising because unable to make a go of it in her preferred career as a journalist, she is in survival mode and does whatever she can in order to get by from one day to the next.  She succeeds more on guile than anything else, which proves her intelligence.       

Director Claire Denis and stars Joe Alwyn & Benny Safdie participated in a conversation after the screening.  The film is based on the 1986 novel by Denis Johnson.  When the Director heard of him, she began reading much of his work in English (rather than a French translation, which is her primary language).    In the book, none of the characters have a name, so this is one of the changes she made; another is the fact that the novel has the female character as the narrator; Claire Denis felt that this would not work quite as well as in a movie version of the story, so that was another divergence.  Although the story takes place in Managua, Nicaragua, it was actually shot in Panama.  The reason for this was because Nicaragua was somewhat politically unstable at the time.