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"Director: David Cronenberg; Screenwriter: Bruce Wagner ; Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Julianne Moore, John Cusack, Robert Pattinson; Running time: 130 mins; Certificate: TBC  Jaded Hollywood satire and portentous family melodrama make for a wearisome combination in David Cronenberg&amp;#039;s misjudged latest. With its heightened, hermetic dialogue and anxious synth soundtrack, Maps to the Stars recalls the director&amp;#039;s last Cannes competitor Cosmopolis, but without any of the latter&amp;#039;s formal elegance. Mia Wasikowska is Agatha, a mysterious young woman whose celebrity obsession leads her to Los Angeles and into a job as personal assistant to Havana (Julianne Moore), a neurotic actress whose star is fading. The two women&amp;#039;s stories intertwine in increasingly farcical ways with that of a Bieber-esque tween star named Benjie (Evan Bird), his overbearing momager (Olivia Williams) and his pop psychology-spouting dad (John Cusack).   These characters are all variously tormented by the ghosts of family past - Havana is vying for the lead role in a remake of her abusive mother&amp;#039;s most famous film, and unresolved mummy issues pervade her prickly relationship with Agatha. Meanwhile a PR-baiting visit to a cancer-stricken fan strikes a morbid chord with Benjie, whose older sister vanished years before under mysterious circumstances.  Part Hollywood sendup, part soapy melodrama, part gothic thriller, Bruce Wagner&amp;#039;s script is a melting pot not unlike David Lynch&amp;#039;s Mulholland Drive, which also began with a starry-eyed young woman coming to Tinseltown to follow her dreams. But where Mulholland Drive was an immersive nightmare that followed its increasingly unhinged characters down the rabbit hole, Maps to the Stars doesn&amp;#039;t commit fully to being anything.   Perhaps most surprising is how ineffectually the movie industry is lampooned - the satire is certainly caustic, but rarely sharp or incisive. There are isolated moments of wit and truth, but Wagner targets such low-hanging fruit - vapid tween starlets, high-strung managers, New Age-y pseudo-psychiatry - that anyone expecting new insight into the biz will feel shortchanged.  Robert Pattinson, graduating to the driver&amp;#039;s seat after Cosmopolis, is a highlight as Agatha&amp;#039;s chauffeur and reluctant love interest - Jerome, an aspiring actor-writer who never goes more than two sentences without mentioning his screenplay, is one of the few Hollywood stereotypes that feels authentic.  But it&amp;#039;s only when Maps to the Stars takes its tongue fully out of its cheek and goes full throttle for its ponderous, histrionic third act that things get really irritating. A cast of caricatures is all well and good if your only goal is satire, but when those caricatures start enacting Freudian fantasies and spiralling into violent madness and waxing poetic about &amp;quot;the flesh that says yes&amp;quot;, the impact is more grating than profound.   Stella Artois is an official partner of the Cannes Film Festival, shining a spotlight on the men and women whose commitment to excellence makes world-class events such as Cannes Film Festival possible. To discover more on the partnership and learn more about Stella Artois&amp;#039; World&amp;#039;s Greatest Events visit Facebook.com/StellaArtoisUK. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/cannes-film-festival/review/a572324/maps-to-the-stars-review-a-grating-and-tedious-satire-cannes-2014/>