Stardom

Fame. According to Andy Worhol, everybody gets his or her fifteen minutes. How you react when plunged into the spotlight, or whether you even get a choice is something all together different. Tina Menzhal goes from being just another small town girl playing hockey to international superstar when her picture finds its way into the right hands. She suddenly finds herself, starring as fruit in TV commercials, walking the runways in New York and Paris and dating the rich and other famous. Thanks to the invasive camera of a documentary filmmaker, we get an inside view of the madness.

The famous people project an image - they go to all the right parties, drive the snazziest cars, date the shiny people and attract a legion of hangers on. Money, a need to be seen and on occasion pheromones, drive their life and relationships, and they lack any real substance. They are usually found in the company of the most vacuous species of all - the supermodels. Although these flawless walking trademarks are literally placed on a pedestal, with people constantly fawning over them, they are secretly reviled, derided as phonies and thought to be incapable of forming a coherent thought on any subject beyond make-up. Even more bizarre is the fact that most women will go to ridiculous lengths to look like them.

Denys Arcand's Stardom is merciless in its indictment of the media, fame, and the cult of beauty. The media - from "legitimate" reporters to Jerry Springer style talk show hosts - are portrayed as scheming, incompetent, sensationalist sycophants who will do whatever possible to get the story, build up the stars and then spend the rest of the time trying to tear them down. No detail of someone's life is too private to escape scrutiny, indeed the more personal it is the better the story - not a big stretch… The symbiosis between the media and fame is depicted as an incestuous co-dependent relationship.

Cast in the role of Tina is relative newcomer (she had a small role in a mini-series) Jessica Pare. Although she had originally sent in a tape for a minor role, when she walked in for her audition Arcand knew immediately that he had found his Tina. Pare has the necessary combination of stunning beauty, and innocence to be believable as the young unknown catapulted to superstardom. Dan Akroyd, is brilliant as the staid, married restauranteur who becomes so enraptured with Tina's beauty that he completely loses himself and everything he holds dear pursuing her. Frank Langella is amusing as the aging diplomat caught in a late life crisis, who tries vainly to control Tina so that he may bask in her beauty, and is burned when he gets too close to the flame.

Artful direction, up close and personal cinematography and great performances sometimes make you forget you're watching a mockumentary. At times I felt like I was watching an accident - I was repulsed and intrigued at the same time. The characters, although somewhat outlandish at times, are not overly ridiculous - for anyone with any doubts, pick up a copy of "Variety" or "People" to see what fame can do to person.

The real question is whether life will imitate art for Ms. Pare.

So...here's the story. As a montrealer and as a Canadian, I'm constantly pushing myself to see some Canadian films. Problem is, there aren't any. Sure, you've got Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter and and The Red Violin, but..uh...other than that, not so much.

Ahhhh....but wait! Here's Stardom. And Gosh, it stars just about every montreal actor there is! And Gee! It's directed by Denys Arcand-why he's just fantastic. Perhaps I should see it.

So I did. About a week ago. And I'm still scratching my head. What the heck is this movie? I can't figure it out for the life of me. Jessica Pare is pretty good as Tina. She embodies the role, and does it gracefully. Dan Ackroyd and Frank Langella are also pretty good too. I've never seen Ackroyd like this before, he's very impressive. The overall film is not easy to classify or understand. I guess it's a satire of the media and I guess it's all about fame and celebrities, but gosh darn...I just don't know...

Listen: Go check it out. It's at least cool to see Montreal double for practically every other city in the world.

Really an excellent little film, it reads like an update of DARLING in that it details the vacuous inner life of a young woman whose physical appearance is her only quality but one which take her around the world as a successful model and to the very pinnacle of her profession. However it is something of a cautionary tale as her inner vacuousness means she can never appreciate what she has or analyze how she got it. Because of her looks and success and fame no one ever stops to ask her. She is a moral imbecile but that too goes unremarked upon because everybody else in her world is one too and the only thing that is noticed about a human personality is material success i.e. either you're a winner or a loser.

The ending is perfect as it plays far more realistically than the comeuppance of Darling where the heroine has achieved the status of a princess but yet she is deathly bored. The heroine of STARDOM doesn't even have that ability to self reflect. While STARDOM plays less bitterly than DARLING because it is less a poison portrait of a manipulating bitch than social criticism, a presentation of an idiotic society which finds and discards superficial heroes, the more blank the better, as a matter of course. If the heroine of STARDOM actually had an intellect, or a central nervous system, she might be regarded as a victim but she seems to have less self awareness than the replicantes of BLADE RUNNER. The ending is chilling for the more sentient audience members, others will be puzzled by what the big deal is at an apparent happy ending.

These are the people who are indirectly being criticized in STARDOM.

Denys Arcand's new film STARDOM is a very funny satire of the celebrity obsessed times we live in. Jessica Pare plays Tina Menzhal, a girl from Cornwall, Ontario who becomes a supermodel. Along the way we see how the media reacts to her and her relationships. The film is funny throughout with wonderful supporting work from Dan Aykroyd, Frank Langhella and Thomas Gibson. Although Arcand goes too far sometimes, the film is overall and excellent satire of modern life.

The cult of celebrity and beauty is exposed in the blackest humor by Denys Arcand with the hysterical Stardom. Jessica Pare as Tina Menzel is a vacuous beauty who is never allowed to be more than a pretty face and sexy body. A cast of mostly Canadian actors, Dan Ackroyd (SNL), Thomas Gibson (Dahrma and Greg), and newcomer Pare are cast to perfection in a scathing parody of entertainment television, expose documentaries, fashion television, and talk shows. Frank Langella (HBO Unscripted) portrays stuffy Blaine De Castillion, an aging minor diplomat who marries a trophy wife only to be thrown over by her for yet another monosyllabic athletic type.

Tina is the young victim of her own beauty and presented as an uneducated, unsophisticated, and naive girl swept into the heights of celebrity solely by the manipulation of her stunning face and figure. She is the victim of both men and women of the fashion trade that cash in. The modeling world which Tina inhabits is exposed with stunning cinematography as Arcand strips away the layers of commercialism that relies on selling the notions of youth and physical perfection like Tina Menzel.

No pc topic is overlooked by Arcand who takes a swipe at Canada's First Nation's eco-hype and indigenous spirituality, PETA animal rights fanaticism, heavily accented Canuk celebrity reporters, ice hockey, and feminist-lesbian-politics all with hilarious results.

Thomas Gibson as the steely agent for the multinational public relation agency that represents Tina never permits his client to be anything but the innocent yet desirable money-making product. Gibson's brief b/w screen time reflects a high production cosmetic ad and both Pare and Gibson are beautifully photographed to highlight their physical attractiveness, yet theirs is the only on screen relationship never consumated. Gibson's performance is both subtle, ambiguous, and dead on, esp. teaching a 400-level Yale course in "Sports and Celebrity Entertainment" and warning students of Millie-Vanilli versus Celine Dion talent spotting.

With little exposure beyond HBO screenings, Stardom continues to be true to the reality TV trend, yet, while it was ahead of its time, particularly in comments about full frontal nudity and Meg Ryan that unfortunately have come true, Arcand's film is often so subtle its droll satire flies over the heads of an unreflective public failing to grasp the humor and truth of the informed filmmaker.