Starlet

Twenty-one year old Jane (Dree Hemingway) is a porn actress simply trying to make ends meet in a cruel world, living with her two deadbeat roommates, one of them a fellow actress. After purchasing a vase from an older woman and finding over $10,000 inside, she decides that the least she could do is try and befriend the woman to provide some resemblance of joy and happiness in her life. I suppose friendship is the least you can offer someone after taking the money they didn't know they had.

The woman is eighty-five year old Sadie (Besedka Johnson), who spends her days calmly and in a true state of loneliness, tending her garden and quietly playing bingo at a senior's center. Meeting each other is a generational shock for the both of them in a way that doesn't revolve around the expected political/social norm changes. Instead, the details are shown just by the way they communicate and adapt to their own lifestyles accordingly. Jane would much rather go out of her way to get something more than textbook happiness, while Sadie feels disturbing consistent flow is a personal sin she can not commit.

Sean S. Baker's Starlet is a sweet, tender little story detailing a generation gap that I love to see explored. It's a film, too, that boldly shows a lifestyle in a way that isn't comical or condescending. While the adult film industry only makes up a small part of Starlet's overall focus, it nonetheless makes its view on the industry respectable and mature. The maturity of director Baker, even as he treads dangerously close to smug depiction, remains visible throughout making this a truly sentimental work.

The film is carried by the gifted performances of Hemingway and Johnson, who strike up a valuable, potent chemistry when they're on-screen together. Hemingway's brash qualities and aware attitude contrast boldly with Johnson's reclusive, control-freak persona, making for a relationship that is erected from more than smiles and good-feelings.

Baker adopts the style of filmmaking known simply as "cinéma vérité," a style that heavily emphasizes the brutally honest, naturalistic side of life in filmmaking. I mention it here because the texture and look of the film plays a big role in its likability. Visuals are often mild and possess a sunny disposition, the filmic atmosphere is accentuated beautifully through the use of lens flare and flushed-out colors, and the warmness comes off as not a put-on, but a comforting feature.

There are moments in Starlet that hold deep, uncompromising emotional drama, mainly in the scenes at bingo, where a coldly detached Sadie is left staring at her bingo card as if she really cares what the odds are. There's emotional honesty in the scene because we can see she is not really happy and Jane knows it as well as the audience does at that point. The scene is beautifully captured and scored perfectly so as not to be too mawkish or too downplayed.

Ultimately, Starlet ends the way we kind of expected and its presence is more significant than a footnote but not so much as a genre-piece or a game-changing masterwork. It's short, simple, but above all, an effective illustration of emotion and tone as a coming of age story and a slight meditation on age and its downsides. It provides warmth and heart in its material, but most importantly, an unmissable soul as it shows both generations in full bloom and the naive impulses they give off that often prevent entire personal connection.

Starring: Dree Hemingway and Besedka Johnson. Directed by Sean S. Baker.

STARLET is a bold and original independent film. It's not afraid to go places most indies would shy away from, mostly due to not landing a distribution deal etc. That is just one of the many reasons why STARLET has true independent spirit.

I saw STARLET at SXSW earlier this year and it was the most exciting narrative to come out of the fest. Sean Baker is a fearless filmmaker that has already established himself with a diverse body of work. He's one I'll be watching for a longtime to come.

And of course this short review/praise would be incomplete without mentioning the breakthrough performance by Dree Hemingway. You could tell she had complete faith in Baker and it showed in her performance. It's a risky role that she seemed to handle gracefully.

STARLET is a film that challenges it's viewers. It challenges our prejudices and preconceived notions, but it does so with a heart.

Honorable mention: The brilliant, and almost effortless, performance by the dog, "Starlet".

A touching look at an unlikely relationship between an adult film star (Dree Hemingway) and an elderly widow (Besedka Johnson), one that starts when the former discovers $10,000 stuffed into a vase she's purchased at the yard sale of the latter. Feeling guilty, she initially attempts to return the money, but soon settles into doing favors for her, despite encountering prickliness and suspicions that she's a scammer.

It's an offbeat story, perhaps exploring the ways in which kindnesses are exchanged, and the tug between looking out for oneself and forming friendships. The young woman has a friend/roommate/fellow porn star (Stella Maeve) who uses her as much as she is used by her creepy boyfriend, and in contrast to her beauty, has some really ugly outbursts, including hurling a racial slur and erupting at her friend. The performances feel organic and wonderful throughout the cast, including little moments like with the makeup artist or the shy fan at the film expo. It was astounding to me that 85-year-old Johnson was discovered by Sean Baker in a gym and appeared here in her only film role.

As with all of Baker's work, there is a deep streak of humanism and great care to avoid judgement, and along the way we get glimpses into the porn industry and senior bingo nights. The ending comes out of left field and is a reminder that people are carrying around pain that we'll often ever know, a profound moment in an otherwise subdued, yet satisfying script.

When I attended a screening of this indie at the 2013 Glasgow Film Festival there were only four other people in the auditorium! But we happy few saw a real gem: Dree Hemingway plays a young porn star who buys a flask from an old woman (Besedka Johnson), only to discover the flask contains several thousand dollars. When Johnson, thinking she's after a refund, refuses to discuss the flask, Hemingway resolves to do the older woman good turns instead, and gradually a relationship develops between the two.

In a way it's a shame there's so much swearing and sexual content (including a scene of unsimulated sex) in the film, as the central soapy portrayal of the friendship between the two women means it would fit nicely in the inoffensive Sunday afternoon slot on BBC2, if it were more family-friendly. It's not perfect: Hemingway's Valley girl drawl is wearing at times, and some of the dialogue has the smell of "workshopped-dialogue-don't-know-how-to-bring-this-scene-to-a-close" about it, but minor gripes aside this is a nice character piece and I'd happily watch it again, even if it means breaking my 'no performing animals' rule (thankfully the dog - the 'Starlet' of the title - isn't asked to do anything dogs don't normally do).

Our story starts with a young woman, Jane (Dree Hemingway), going to yard sales in search of items to brighten her drab bedroom. She meets an older woman named Sadie (Besedka Johnson)who sells her a thermos. Jane discovers that it contains about $10,000. This is the jumping off point for the story of Starlet.

The entire film is a story of revelation. We follow the natural progress of the women's lives and the development of their relationship. As they learn about each other, the viewer learns about the entirety of their lives. Jane is a cheerful woman who embraces life with a smile. Sadie is rather gruff and distrusting. The contrast in their personalities is rather a reverse of the Harold & Maude story (which the director cites as an influence).

Some of the revelations are mundane, some are surprising. Through it all, the unlikely pair forges what might be a friendship. The film is about the nature of friendship. What does it mean? Does it entail responsibilities as well as benefits? What are the commonalities necessary for friendship?

The director, Sean Baker, seeks cinema verite. The result feels like a slice from the lives of two distinctly different women. One is at the beginning of her adult life, the other is at the end. But neither has a real family, so there may be common ground after all.

Meslissa Maeve is a standout as Jane's roommate, Melissa. And a special mention should go to Boonee who plays Jane's dog, Starlet (actually the pet of the director) and steals some scenes.

The last revelation comes in the final scene. It is a scene much discussed on the message boards. Personally, I loved the scene. It is beautiful and revelatory at the same time.