When I look back over the last 25 years, many of the best films I have seen are foreign which means in practice not made in Hollywood. Some like 'China', Catherine Deneuive, are exceptional. This film 'The Moon and the Stars' is another winner. The subject is a tricky one, an film producer who looks as if he's going to cry any minute whilst dealing with a Fascist state and its corrupt officials making a film called Tosca. All four of the main actors are exceptional and all give-of-their-best. Catherine Macormack took the honours only because I fell madly in love with her the moment she walked on screen, Jonathan Pryce was the supreme English professional in an head of Smersh sort of way.
But trying to convince the audience that he and McCormack were discreet lovers was hopeless due to the obvious great age difference. The part of the foppish young man about town, Niccolo Sinetti, should have been written out completely, or another more convincing actor given the part. Somewhere in the film I spotted the young actor who played the horrible Nazi in 'The Boy in the Striped Pajames', his talents were not really used or brought out, and it might have been best if he had been given the fops/foppish person part. The camera work made this film, and being partially deaf I really appreciated the excellent sound. The ending was wrong, I'd would liked to have seen the mythical producer Alfred Molina allowed to escape to Switzerland, and in the last scene the corrupt official and him parting as good friends along the lines of the ending in Casablanca. Why the main actor Alfred Molina in this film had to be gay was a mistake, no one really believed it nor did it add to the films soul or message. Much better he played the part of an David Selznick or Louis B Mayer than another fellow struggler heading for an death camp. Lord spare me the pathos in films, I want happy endings, clappy-happy endings not mission statements. 9 / 10. And yes its a good film and made for adults not USA children age 12.
