Written and directed by Joshua David Pivato, co-written by Krystal Lawton and Nicholas Raponi. To win the role that could define her forever, a desperate actress submits to the methods of the enigmatic “Starmaker” – and steps into a world where fame is a ritual, there’s no one left to cut, and escape isn’t part of the script. Starring: Joshua David Pivato, Krystal Lawton, David Straus, Martin Huss and Sabrina Knappett.
Starmaker comes in hot with its opening, there’s a lot going on and a wide range of tones, which can be slightly confusing but give it a minute to settle in and it finds its footing. As it establishes itself, it becomes an intimate, tense and claustrophobic thriller. You can feel that there’s a key influence of classic film, with the way that it approaches the thriller genre and how Joshua David Pivato’s directorial style favours a noir edge.
It’s a choice that works better in some ways than others. Occasionally that noir, jazz influence can feel overwhelming, it isn’t always well balanced with the rest of the film. Particularly when it comes to the score which can sit heavily atop scenes when it leans on those jazz notes, but it’s much more effective when it sits back and employs some subtler strings to feed the tension.
The other key factor it clearly influenced is the choice to go black and white with the visual, and again it’s something that feels hit and miss. Earlier on it doesn’t feel like it was a great fit, it’s a modern story, with a nice conspiracy, cult-like vein and restricting the colour of the film doesn’t always work in its favour, losing a little detail here and there. However, it does grow on you as time goes on and you can see the intention with this being such a strongly contained story to keep a singular focus.
The direction also has a nice consistency, embracing the tension and mystique. It can occasionally take a risk, or try to veer into Lynch-ian territory, which doesn’t entirely pay off but for the most part, it has a great blend of sticking very closely to its characters to add that feeling of being trapped. You can sense how the filmmakers wanted to move beyond your typical thriller. It’s also supported by some strong editing work, by Pivato and Andrew Cromey, particularly in the scenes that have a quick back and forth.
With the direction staying intimately with these two characters, in an isolated environment, it asks a lot of Krystal Lawton and Joshua David Pivato. Lawton gives a strong yet vulnerable performance, she finds the perfect balance of striving to succeed but speaking up when she feels uncomfortable. The industry still has a lot of progress to be made for women to feel perfectly comfortable speaking up, so it’s great to be a more natural part of this story, for Katrina to know her limits. She’s a great leading character and Lawton makes her very sympathetic and natural.
Pivato’s Simon on the other hand is nicely unnatural, he creates a cold, serial-killer-esque vibe which works really well. He manages to find the right tone for his character to be threatening and aggressive, while keeping his manner casual. Pivato definitely deserves points for how much you will dislike his character, he does well to capture the classic abusive personality.
Considering how strongly the story does involve emotional abuse and how it explores the vulnerable nature of actresses trying to make it in the industry, and the dangerous possibilities, it’s great to see that Krystal Lawton had input in the story to bring a woman’s perspective. Often you can sense when that isn’t the case, so it’s refreshing to see a better approach here. Especially in how they portray that use of repetition to break people down, and restricting nutrition to impact cognitive ability. The choices that they make to represent exploitation and gaslighting all work really well.
It also has a good progression, considering that it’s taking place mostly in one location and mostly revolves around dialogue, it moves well and never feels too slow. However, its conspiracy can feel a touch too contained, it would have been nice to see it expand slightly to let the story intensify further. The ending does also feel fairly unsatisfying, it’s wrapped up quite quickly and isn’t entirely clear what the writers were trying to achieve with it. It does still close out the story, but it leaves enough questions unanswered that its impact is hindered by it. It’s a shame not to see its bubbling tensions go out with a bigger bang.
Starmaker attempts to create a hybrid thriller, drawing upon the golden age of Hollywood and modern styles with interesting results. The story does well to portray the type of exploitative, abusive and coercive behaviour that women face in the industry. It moves well, with a nicely growing tension and keeps things uncomfortably intimate in a good way. Particularly with the performances from Krystal Lawton and Joshua David Pivato, who bring a great intensity. However, it feels like not everything is coming together with confidence, some of the tone is fighting itself or clashing, and its more dramatic choices with the direction aren’t always as effective. The ending also goes out on an unfortunately middling note but overall, it’s a good story, and a solid effort for a debut feature from Pivato.
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