Director David Cronenberg has created some great films in the past few decades. "The Fly", "Dead Ringers" and "The Dead Zone" to name just a few. Even he can't breathe much life into the predictable, depressing poser MAPS TO THE STARS.
Mia Wasikowska (In Treatment, Alice in Wonderland) stars as Agatha, a physically and mentally damaged young woman that comes to Hollywood to be a personal assistant to a star. She soon lands that role to fading star Havana Segrand, played by Julianne Moore.
Robert Pattinson plays limo driver Jerome and John Cusack is self help guru to the stars Dr. Stanford Weiss.
As these depressed and depressing characters circle in and out of each others lives, you find the film limping (definitely no hurtling here) toward an ending you'll see coming early on.
None of the characters are very sympathetic.
That's not a deal killer for enjoying a film. Paul Thomas Anderson is brilliant at creating three hour films around unlikeable people with no redeeming qualities. Daniel Day Lewis's Daniel Plainview in "There Will Be Blood" and Tom Cruise's Frank Mackey in "Magnolia" are despicable humans, but the films that envelope them are brilliant and hypnotic.
You won't find that here.
Some stars in Hollywood are egotistical, self-centered folks, hardly the backbone of a movie.
A real disappointment from Cronenberg.
This Map leads nowhere interesting and gets a D.
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