Claire Denis has made a career for herself in the arthouse community as a daring director, a frequent provocateur who has consistently attacked colonialism, societal customs, and sexism in her work. Taking French cinema by storm, her career progressed through experimental dramas (Beau Travail), artistic, gory horror (Trouble Every Day), and searing social commentary (White Material) before her recent English-language debut, High Life. That bleak, beautiful film starred Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, and André Benjamin and announced Denis to the international community in a mainstream way for perhaps the first time.
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Now she’s back with another English-language film, Stars at Noon, based on the beloved, belated Denis Johnson’s novel of the same name. This time around, instead of Pattinson, Denis has teamed up with perhaps the next Kristen Stewart — Margaret Qualley. The actress has gained recognition for her phenomenal work in the vastly underrated HBO show The Leftovers, the wonderful film The Nice Guys, and the hit Netflix drama Maid, but it’s Stars at Noon which announces her as the next major talent. She’s absolutely magnetic here as a journalist-turned-prostitute trying to get out of Nicaragua at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. When she falls in love with a customer, she digs herself deeper and deeper into a dangerous hole.
Stars at Noon competed for the coveted Palme d’Or at the recent Cannes Film Festival, ultimately winning the Grand Prix (the second-highest award). Her film is now making its North American premiere at the 60th New York Film Festival, where it continues to be divisive.
Stars at Noon is About Love in the Abstract
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Stars at Noon may be Denis’ most accessible film yet, furthering her trajectory toward recognition outside the festival circuit. This is not to say that the film is some compromise between the arthouse and the mainstream; while Stars at Noon may sometimes seem like a dimestore paperback, some predictable romance story that matches its exoticism with eroticism, the film is much more than that. The film is abstract, sometimes frustratingly vague, and like most Denis films, it is resolutely sexual, political, and mysterious.
Stars at Noon follows the young journalist Trish, who seems less interested in the investigative profession than she is in getting drunk and sleeping with whoever can help her. Denis studies her throughout her sex work, filling the frame in a subjective way to position the film from Trish’s perspective. She meets the handsome British gentlemen Daniel at a hotel bar and plies her trade as usual, though there is a spark present between them that is decidedly absent from her encounters with other men. Daniel might be her ticket out of Nicaragua, or maybe he’s just the love of her life; intentions are often hard to decipher in this impressionistic film.
Denis expertly uses Daniel’s scratch marks and the fresh redness of his recently gripped back skin to indicate Trish’s desire here. In the Nicaraguan heat, the two sweat well together, and Stars at Noon manages to be sexy without ever feeling creepy or exploitative. The red marks on Daniel’s back, blood having rushed to the skin’s surface as if to reach out and touch the touch itself, is one of many examples of Denis closely following the ‘show, don’t tell’ rule. This usually works in her favor, here and elsewhere. The subtleties and quiet distance keeps Stars at Noon from feeling like some R-rated Eat, Pray, Love: Nicaraguan Edition.
Stars at Noon is Mysteriously Timeless and Current
However, this method and refusal of explanation sometimes makes Stars at Noon feel inexplicable, messy, and impenetrable (despite the penetration on display). Occasionally, events in the narrative and certain characters’ motivations seem foggy at best and confusing at worst. This sporadic confusion feels obscurantist, as if Denis is nearly afraid of how accessible her film is, prompting her to enshroud the film with unnecessary mystery at times. It’s as if Denis filmed a normal political thriller with waves of sensuality, but then randomly cut scenes from it.
Usually, though, the mystery works well in Stars at Noon. There’s an abstract paranoia to the film that’s more unnerving by its lack of concrete explanation; the original novel took place during the Nicaraguan revolution of the ’80s, but Denis’ film feels somehow extremely current (what with the mask-wearing populace and narrative use of vaccinations and Covid testing) and timeless (with the images of an armed military presence and covert Western interests feeling practically eternal). Of course, just like love and heartbreak, political turmoil is both current and timeless; the recent fraudulent elections in Nicaragua are reminiscent of centuries of political corruption around the world.
While it is abstract, a general plot emerges against the backdrop of their love affair — Daniel is a married man involved in some shady business dealings, and is a target of both Costa Rican and American authorities; Trish is determined to leave the country and return home to America. The two are entangled in a web of political intrigue, as Trish attempts to keep Daniel safe while both the CIA and Costa Rican police pursue him, though she can’t help herself when it comes to rum and sarcasm.
Margaret Qualley is an Amazing Muse for Claire Denis
The aforementioned performance from Qualley is the showstopper here, a fireball of intense energy who lights up every scene and burns the screen. Looking like a young Andie MacDowell (her mother), the curly-haired Qualley masters an alchemical mixture of manic pixie dream girl, self-destructive alcoholic, and erotic flirt. She perfectly portrays the conflict of a cynical, self-interested woman struggling internally with the deep, selfless emotions of love.
There is something about her character Trish, often cramped into an intimate close-up, which conveys a certain truth about being a young woman in an unkind world. Through the very specific situation of an American journalist stuck in Nicaragua, having to use her body and wits to survive, Qualley communicates more universal feelings of the vulnerabilities of womanhood.
Denis recognized this in Johnson’s novel. “I found in The Stars at Noon something rare,” the filmmaker said at Cannes, “something addressing to me my own fears, my own humiliations, my own hopes, my own despair.” Denis immediately knew that Qualley was the acting vessel to contain these feelings in Stars at Noon after seeing her in the Tarantino film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where she played the flirty but potentially dangerous hitchhiker. Initially, Robert Pattinson was cast opposite her, but Covid changed that; Taron Egerton was cast next, but that fell through as well.
Stars at Noon is Vague but Sounds and Looks Beautiful
Ultimately Joe Alwyn was cast as Daniel, and it’s a good decision. He’s as brooding as Pattinson and as tough as Egerton. Alwyn is a unique person in the industry, from his Grammy wins for co-writing songs with his partner Taylor Swift to his excellent performance in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, and he’s a good scene partner for Qualley here. Their sexual chemistry is organic, even if the actual love between them seems undeveloped and often odd. Benny Safdie (co-director of Uncut Gems and more) is excellent as a CIA agent interested in Daniel; it would have been nice to see more of him, but the small screen time he has with Qualley is incredible.
The great band Tindersticks, a (surprisingly) frequent collaborator with the director, provides strong ambiance in the score and lands an instant classic with the hopelessly romantic, sultry title song. Tindersticks masterfully accompanies the gorgeous cinematography from the legendary Éric Gautier, who photographs Nicaragua and Trish’s body with an equal amount of heat, clarity, and curiosity. Like a lot of abstract art, Stars at Noon sounds and looks beautiful, but the vagueness of its sexy mystery can sometimes work against itself. Nonetheless, Denis is as hypnotic as ever in this film that truly makes Qualley a star.
Distributed by Wild Bunch and A24, and produced by Curiosa Films, Arte France Cinéma, Barnstormer Productions, and Hypatia Films, Stars at Noon is in theaters on October 14th.
