Star 80

Everybody's seen a movie that's carried by its acting, where the script, or the direction, or one or more elements aren't working, but the acting buoys the whole thing. Star 80 is one of those movies. The movie is about Dorothy Stratten (played by Mariel Hemingway), a Playboy Playmate, and her husband/manager Paul Snider (played by Eric Roberts), her discovery, rise to fame, his insane, controlling jealousy, and the murder/suicide that ended both their lives. The problems with the movie are many. First, there's its weird format. It opens in media res, Dorothy's murder having already happened, and Paul ranting and raving to himself in the aftermath. The movie constantly cuts back to this, which adds nothing. It ALSO cuts to talking-head interviews, as if this were a documentary, but the talking heads are actors. Who are they being interviewed by? Other than the occasional press interview of Dorothy, we never see. Is this supposed to be a dramatized documentary? Is it the police? The movie doesn't answer it. It just uses the device as a way to provide exposition and narration without actually working storytelling into the narrative itself. It's clumsy and disruptive. Another problem is how lurid the movie is. Yes, it's about a Playmate, which means, by its very nature, the central subject is a person famous for being naked. It would be hard to get around the nudity all things considered. But this movie goes out of its way to show Mariel Hemingway naked again and again and again and again. The cut-backs to Paul post-murder/pre-suicide are intercut with flashes of her many photo shoots, on top of documenting her photo shoots where it makes chronological sense. It's done to pound home Paul Snider's mania and obsession with his wife and his insecurities about her success and his failure, but it never feels that way; it just feels exploitative and pointless. Perhaps the biggest problem, however, is how the movie keeps telling us Dorothy Stratten was this amazing, once-in-a-lifetime human being. A unicorn of beauty and talent. But the movie never backs it up. Sure, she was a pretty blonde with a nice body. Sure, she was in Playboy. So are 11 other women, every year. I started this movie knowing Dorothy Stratten was a blonde Playboy Playmate who was murdered by her psycho husband. I ended this movie knowing exactly that much, and nothing else. There is no hint of extraordinary charisma, unique talent, or anything to differentiate her from the centerfolds that came before or after her. What saves this movie from being a slog is the acting. Hemingway does an excellent job capturing the dewy-eyed naivete of a young woman being told by an older man how she's the most gorgeous thing in the world, how he can make her into a star, and so on. She's a good-hearted, sweet human being who just didn't have the worldliness required to be a star. Conversely, Eric Roberts is mesmerizing as the sleazy, insecure, jealous Paul Snider, a hustler and a pimp with big dreams but little else. He's desperate for the fame and attention Dorothy gets. Watching him unravel, bit by bit, as his abuse and emotional stranglehold on Dorothy pushes her away, shows how much range Eric Roberts truly has. It's a shame he didn't get recognized for it. He's not just cartoonishly sleazy, or obviously diabolical; he's a desperate, pathetic, small man whose need for validation pushes away those from whom he seeks the validation. In the end, though, performances only get you so far. You can watch it and enjoy them, but the way the movie is directed, and the unceasing male gaze through which the story is told, give this a tacky, rushed-to-the-screen TV-movie-of-the-week feel, except with a ton of boobs. And since it ends on such a down note, you don't even get the satisfaction of Dorothy breaking free and finding her own way. You spend an hour and forty five minutes watching a girl get conned and abused by a greasy schmuck, before being shot in the head. There's no lesson to learn, no greater wisdom, nothing to gain whatsoever, which means there's no compelling reason to watch it.