Stardom, the whirlwind tale of a supermodel's rise and fall, sounds like a thousand other facile satires of celebrity, glamour, and the commodification of all things, but it may be the first movie that mirrors, in its very syntax, the snap-crackle-and-pop narcotic superficiality of the E! channel. I mean that as a compliment. The director, Canada's Denys Arcand (Jesus of Montreal), has finally found a subject as synthetic and glib as his sensibility. Stardom gets you onto its wavelength, duplicating the insatiable camera-ready madness of our disposable fame culture, even as it scores one easy point after another.
It helps that the star, 18-year-old Jessica Pare, has the pout of Bardot, the eyes and cheekbones of Liv Tyler, and the body of Jayne Mansfield. Pare is ridiculously gorgeous, but she's a canny young actress, and she lends lightning credence to the story of Tina, who starts as an Ontario hockey player, gets her picture snapped, then rides her image to the top of the world. She does commercials, magazines, talk shows, videos, and, not so incidentally, relationships, which the film, in an act of irresistible moxie, treats as just another form of media. B+
Add your comment
The rules: Keep it clean, and stay on the subject or we might delete your comment. If you see inappropriate language, e-mail us. An asterisk * indicates a required field.