In Stars At Noon, an American expat sells her body at an uncertain cost
With daring performances by Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn, French icon Claire Denis puts her stamp on a John le Carré-esque thriller
Film Reviews Trish
Claire Denis continues a career preoccupation with ex-pat life in Stars At Noon, an update of Denis Johnson’s 1986 novel about an American woman who uses sex as currency to survive when she’s stuck in politically unstable Nicaragua. The screenplay, adapted by Denis, Léa Mysius, and Andrew Litvack, stays faithful to the source material’s characters and geographic setting, but transports events to the Covid era of face masks and PCR tests. The plot drips with so much misogyny that even synopsizing it induces cringes, but if anyone can get away with telling such a story in this day and age, it’s probably Denis. She filters the goings-on through proverbial rose-colored glasses that strip away much of the inherent cynicism in the transactional nature of the relationship at the film’s core.
Margaret Qualley (Maid, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood) plays Trish Johnson, an American freelance journalist covering political kidnappings in Nicaragua, who finds herself without an outlet, an assignment, a passport, or dollars—perhaps not surprising given she’s inexplicably pitching hard-hitting stories to a luxury travel magazine. The córdobas she carries are no longer worth anything due to the black market. Out of desperation, she resorts to turning tricks to earn cash and curry favor with local authority figures, hoping to extract herself from the country. Every time before she performs sex work, she is seen wiping tears away—an act the film most definitely does not regard with dignity or respect, at least for Trish.
When she leaves her own dumpy hotel for a bar at the swanky Intercontinental to bait her next $50 john, she meets the mysterious Daniel DeHaven (Joe Alwyn, The Favourite), a British contractor for an oil company, or so he claims. After shaking a Costa Rican police officer (Danny Ramirez) following Daniel, they wind up in her hotel room for sex. But unlike with her previous patrons, Trish visibly enjoys herself with Daniel, and they grow closer as they increasingly depend on each other for a getaway.
The film has several of Denis’ signature flourishes: There’s one scene in which Trish and Daniel twirl on an otherwise empty dance floor while a DJ cues up a slow jam by the Tindersticks, and another where a restaurant employee circles Trish in the same way Denis Lavant got down to Corona’s “Rhythm Of The Night” in Beau Travail. There’s also a persistent colonial gaze, for which critics seldom take Denis to task.
What stands out is how Denis and DP Eric Gautier frame everything like a romance, when what transpires on screen is often anything but romantic. Trish endures seemingly endless indignities to get by, and the circumstantial lovers face ominous threats that ultimately escalate to violence, but the Tindersticks contribute a tender, jazzy score. Perhaps Denis does perceive this as a romance, though the press notes characterize the film as a “romantic thriller.”
The “thriller” part is not apparent from the visuals or filmmaking techniques, though the story does maintain a certain John le Carré vibe with its international intrigue. Despite the constant sight of armed patrols lurking in the background, and Benny Safdie appearing out of nowhere possessed with knowledge of everything there is to know about Trish and Daniel, the film never builds up any real sense of suspense, urgency, or imminent danger. It doesn’t feel like a true erotic thriller, at least not the kind that Paul Verhoeven or Adrian Lyne might have helmed.
Perhaps Johnson and Denis have tried to expose rather than exploit the material’s misogyny, but Trish doesn’t evidence any agency, despite being a competent and knowledgeable journalist who speaks Spanish fluently. The film goes out of its way to reiterate how degraded Trish feels to sell her body, but she makes an exception for the gringo, though he’s arguably no less shady than the rest of her clients. Ultimately, Trish learns a lesson in the end, but it’s unclear if she understands the role her own prejudices may have played in learning it—rendering Stars At Noon an occasionally seductive but muddled examination of a complex physical and emotional relationship.
18 Comments
What the hell is this review? ‘Selling her body’? Has anyone outside of 1984 itself used such an outdated and sexist term? I don’t think you can purport to critique the supposed misogyny of this film while writing in a frankly misogynistic way yourself. This is so hilariously, grossly judgmental about sex work and about the central character’s actions. You sound like a conservative Christian, judging the protagonist on whether she lives up to your standards of a good woman or not.
Feels reductive to have a sex worker that hates being a sex worker movie in an age where sex workers are forming unions, become their own boss, become producers and directors of content, and sometimes crossover into mainstream acting. Not to say there isn’t a lot of room for improvement or a shortage of scummy guys or abusive industry practices, just that this seems like a movie for no one, too horny for puritans, and too dated for anyone seeking titillation or romance.
This. I’m tired of movies that portray sex work as horrible and one that people only resort to out of desperation, rather than as a chosen profession that offers financial security and freedom. I have interacted with a number of sex workers, and all enjoyed their profession and its benefits, and saw what they did as providing something vital to a great many people who, for whatever reason, cannot find sexual fulfillment through other means.
And yet the majority of sex workers are forced into the profession by circumstances, poverty, or even people they trusted. It’s a far more complex issue than people want to think about. It’s easier to say sex work is always a net positive for the workers when that’s factually untrue except for the lucky exceptions.
The majority are forced? Yes, it is more complex,
and yet here you are making simplifications with nothing to back it up. I
never said it’s always a net positive. The fact that the character
chooses prostitution, works for something called a travel magazine, and
thought an unstable Nicaragua during COVID was a good destination to
cover shows some extreme lapses in judgment. At least if it was a period
piece, they could get away with their lead character being so dumb and helpless.If
she had a phone, she could have done all of her sex work alone in a
safe, private location and uploaded to PornHub, OnlyFans, Clips4Sale,
etc. just like the thousands, ie the majority, who work outside the
studio system. Or she could have avoided sex work entirely by
establishing a Patreon and filming whatever was happening in Nicaragua.
It’s ridiculous that she can freely go to a fancy hotel to solicit a $50
happy ending instead of asking someone there if they can call the
American embassy. They also have farms, ranches, and factories in Nicaragua, and their US
export numbers in 2020 were slightly worse, but mostly on par with 2019
numbers. But the film isn’t interested in being realistic, they just
wanted someone who would never choose sex work of her own free will to choose sex work and be miserable about it.
In the context of this film it makes complete sense that the character isn’t forming a union. She’s just stuck and doing this temporarily. As many women have! What I don’t get is why the setting was changed from the Sandanista era of Nicaragua to the present day.
I mean it seems realistic she wouldn’t be happy about it in these circumstances. Sex worker unions are aimed at people who actively want to be sex workers, not someone who is intimidated by some outside force or has little to no other options
“How dare this work portray how shitty the world can be rather than the fantasy utopia where everything is always amazing” seems to be growing as an angle of criticism and it’s incredibly weird.
Not at all what I said, but if you want to watch a prostitute that hates being a prostitute fall in love with someone she’s prostituting herself to, feel free, I’m not stopping you.
oh do one. You were moaning about the movie having “a sex worker that hates being a sex worker”. Grow up.
I’m a bit confused as to why someone who is arguing in favour of the dignity of sex workers would keep throwing out “prostitute” like you are.
Plenty of people are in survival sex work for lack of other options, and they still don’t like to be called “prostitutes”.
Against my better judgement, I will directly reply to you, greys person. ‘Prostitute’ is a neutral term. If there’s any negative connotation, that’s your personal interpretation and not what the actual word means, which is just someone who performs sexual acts for money. The only negative term I can think of is “whore,” which is just from association with puritan beliefs about sexuality, and something I’ve heard, personally and otherwise, reclaimed as a sex positive term. There’s also “hoes,” which is similarly rooted in judgment and shaming.Who are these people you’re referring to that do “survival sex work” and what is their preferred term for their profession? Escort? Adult model? If anyone is forced to do something they hate, that’s rape, that’s sex trafficking. Today, anyone with a smartphone and an internet connection can do safe, legal sex work from home. It is prostitution regardless of anyone trying to sugarcoat it, and that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.
Their preferred term is sex worker. “Prostitute” is no longer used in those circles and generally considered pejorative. And sex work is not made immediately safe and legal because of smartphones, as I’m sure you would realise if you think about it for even a second (as a basic scenario, a client can rape you, and if sex work is illegal in your jurisdiction then calling the police is extremely risky).
That’s incorrect. All prostitutes are sex workers, not all sex workers are prostitutes. There is no politically correct version of prostitute, I hope I’m the only person you tried to lecture about this because that is very stupid and I feel embarrassed for you.And I don’t know what you thought I meant by the use of smartphones, but you literally cannot be raped from across the internet. Even if a wiener was somehow able to come out of your screen, you could just throw it on the ground and stomp it. I was talking about cam girls and video content. Anyone can verify their age on PornHub and make ad money on there. There are various streaming sites, OnlyFans, Clips4Sale, there are so many places a person would go to do sex work before walking the actual streets, especially this really dumb character that hates it so much until one guy is both hot and nice. It’s so dumb. It would make more sense if it was about someone who was the victim of sex trafficking, but she’s her own fucking pimp.
Feels reductive to have a movie where an Amazon warehouse worker hates their job in an era when Amazon workers are trying to form unions…sounds a bit silly huh
The synopsis says this take place in 1984’s Nicaragua, but the review says the film transports events to the Covid era of face masks and PCR tests. IS this taking place in a fictional world in which Covid-84 existed? What are the ramifications of a global pandemic during the final years of the Cold War? Were the 1984 Winter Olympics cancelled out of an abundancy of caution, and if so what impact would the Soviet Union failing to avenge their Lake Placid defeat four years earlier have on global tensions? Was Donald Trump still elected President? Does the MCU exist? WHO PLAYS ANT-MAN?!?!!
What an Uber woke review..so unbelievably irritating to read..threw in every tired ideological trope…the “colonial/colonist” comment takes the cake
things i learned today, thanks to avclub
if you employ a sex worker, you hate women
if you ARE a sex worker, you hate women
if you enjoy your sex work, you hate women
if you don’t enjoy your sex work, you hate women
and also, there’s a now a thing called a “colonial gaze”.
thank you avc! i’ll be back tomorrow for another fresh cup of millenial virtue vom!