Stars at Noon – REVIEW
Image: Joe Alwyn and Margaret Qualley in Stars At Noon. Image: film still
By MARTIN FABINYI
Stars At Noon, the latest film by French auteur Claire Denis, brings Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn to the hell-hole of present-day Nicaragua.
Qualley plays a journalist desperate to return the States, and Alwyn is a mysterious Englishman. Together they attempt to escape the police state for the safety of Costa Rica as their initial physical bond becomes something deeper, and more dangerous. When the CIA appears it seems all bets are off.
This is an erotic “love in the time of Covid” movie, with Qualley managing to rack up seven sex scenes (six with Alwyn and one damp fumble with an earlier client).
Even in the depressing, ugly landscape of its backdrop, the story is lifted from pandemic strife by the all-luminous Qualley – who leapt out of the screen playing one of the Manson family in Tarantino’s One Upon A Time In Hollywood. She is terrific here, bringing a depth to the hard-drinking/hard-smoking Trish.
Alwyn, on the other hand, is his usual passive, pale self, not dissimilar to the character he played in the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends. He has more to do in this film however, and there’s a certain amount of chemistry between the two leads.
Denis describes the film (based on the 1986 novel, The Stars at Noon by Denis Johnson) as a love story between two people who develop a relationship solely due to the context of the revolution. It’s kept as a mysterious escapade film with an expectant outcome, fuelled by a world where the streets are patrolled by gunmen and the strange “magazine editor”, played by an unrecognisable John C. Reilly, controls the outcome.
Denis is well-known as an award-winning director with films as diverse as Chocolat (1988), Bastards (2013) and High Life (2018). She has often had films screened at Cannes, and Stars At Noon was the co-winner of the Grand Prix at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
The haunting music of the film was composed by the English alternative rock band Tindersticks, who have contributed the music to many of Claire Denis’ previous films.
Stars At Noon is an intriguing film: not great but made eminently watchable due to Margaret Qualley’s sublime performance.
★★★
