Directed by Alan McIntyre Smith and written by Rob Ackerman and Kate Ginna, when a young woman tries to revive the reputation of a forgotten astronomer, history threatens to repeat itself. Starring: Matt Bogart, Kate Ginna, Lei Nico,and Annette Gordon-Reed.
Every so often a film will come along that so widely misses the mark that it’s almost hard to believe it wasn’t intentional, Stargazer is one of those films. It is not a tribute to the astronomer from whom its name derives nor is it a portrayal of the misogyny and inequality she faced, it’s exactly the opposite. It’s an over-sexualised, sleazy, melodramatic evening, viewed through an uncomfortable, overpowering lens of male-gaze. Put simply, it achieves the antithesis of what it thinks it does.
It’s genuinely baffling for a film, that is not explicitly porn nor erotica, to spend so much of its energy attempting to add sexual tension to almost every single moment. There are precious few instances where these characters do something which isn’t dripping with double entendre or unconvincing desire. To then have its intentions linked to feminism and empowerment is so accidentally ironic that it’s bewildering.
Not only that but it moves with such a lack of direction and slow pacing that it is genuinely painful to sit through. Especially since once you realise its misguided nature, it has nothing much to offer. There’s one interesting connection between Kate Ginna’s Grace and Lei Nico’s Diana but it’s being completely undermined by a misunderstanding of women and an overtly male perspective. Which is before you even add in the ridiculously stereotypical, misogynist presence of Matt Bogart’s Spike.
Stargazer is unforgivably misguided, becoming an insult to the woman it’s trying to honour. It’s sincerely difficult to grasp how the filmmakers were disastrously unaware of the tone their film was creating. That instead of celebrating women and their contribution to science, it basically created the dialogue portion of a soft-core porn flick. It’s viewed entirely through a male gaze and has a very poor understanding of women.
FilmCarnage.com 