In present-day Nicaragua, a headstrong American journalist and a mysterious English businessman strike up a romance as they become embroiled in a dangerous labyrinth of lies and conspiracies and are forced to try and escape the country.
Margaret Qualley Joe Alwyn Benny Safdie Danny Ramirez Nick Romano Stephan Proaño Robin Durán John C. Reilly Carlos Serrano Monica Bartholomew Carlos Bennett Sebastian Donoso Héctor Moreno Jose Leonel Hernandez Cristian Pulido Luís Franco Steven Garcia Rogelio Chung Dayan Rodriguez Benito Tuñon Moises Caballero Bayardo Peralta Emmanuel Barahona Alexis Quintero Carlos Trujilo Maria Quintero Luis Barrios Gustavo Pérez Miroslava Morales Show All…
Emilien Bignon Pituka Ortega-Heilbron Marcela Heilbron Vincent Maraval Eva Diederix Brahim Chioua Olivier Delbosc
The Stars at Noon, Öğle Güneşinde Yıldızlar, 正午之星, 烈愛灼星, Звёзды в полдень, Las Estrellas al Mediodía, Las estrellas al mediodía, 정오의 별, Hvězdy v poledne, Gwiazdy w południe, Žvaigždės vidurdienį, Зірки опівдні, Des étoiles à midi, สตาร์ส แอต นูน
France
Cannes Film Festival
USA
New York Film Festival
South Korea18
Jeonju International Film Festival
Taiwan
Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival
USAR
Canada
PortugalM/14
AustraliaMA 15+
Turkey
Russia18+
France
Czechia15+
Germany16
Spain
USAR
USAR
AustraliaMA 15+
New ZealandR16
UK15
South Korea18
Germany16
France
Australia
Canada
Czechia
France
Germany
New Zealand
Portugal
Russia
South Korea
Spain
Taiwan
Turkey
UK
USA
Another treatise on feeling lost, lonely, and fragile in a dangerous, collapsing post-colonial world from our foremost master of the intersection between the sensual and political. No other filmmaker is as gifted as Denis at the conflicted ambiguity between desiring the touch of another and having that touch cursed by unseen material, transactional forces. MQ is in the running for the strangest/best physical performance of the year (even the way she simply walks barefoot in the rainy streets is hypnotizing), and I will be sliding the moody, ambient jazz Tindersticks score into my end-of-the-year rotation immediately. Were the Cannes critics shown a different movie?
Claire Denis may have fallen in love with Margaret Qualley because of her coltish and carefree performance as one of the Manson girls in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, yet I can’t help but suspect that — if only subconsciously — there may be another reason why she decided to cast the young actress in the lead role of “Stars at Noon.”
Like so many of Denis’ films (“Beau Travail,” “Trouble Every Day”), this sweaty romantic thriller about two white foreigners who fall in love (or at least fuck a lot) against the background of Central American political tensions is a cryptic and carnal search for a way out of purgatory. And like so many of Denis’ films, the…
acquired taste, I guess, but honey, I’m slurping it down 🥤
My understand is that the source novel is very specific. Denis’ movie exists not only in a suspended time, but place as well. Latin America not as a playground for foreign forces as much as this endless dangerous road, the political intrigue remaining an obscure pressure over the two main characters. It is perhaps because I'm currently in an easy mood to connect to an idea of purgatory, but the entire thing remains very appealing for me. Stars at Noon is pretty much about clinging to another body as the uncertain shadows falls over you, less a romance than longing for one as you die slowly. It certainly makes great use of Denis facility to shift between physical and abstract…
The vibes that Stars at Noon instills are probably most comparable to the precariousness and excitement of “hitting it raw,” which makes a lot of sense if you’ve seen the film.
To those looking for plot, I guide you to Claire Denis’s introduction at the NYFF premiere wherein she vaguely gestured for all the men of the film to come onstage (not naming any of them) and, instead of speaking about the movie, directly addressed Dennis Lim (beet red, giggling) saying: “the first time I ever saw a real white linen suit was with you… in Colombia…” Then the film played.
very sad to admit that i did not love a claire denis movie starring margaret qualley and benny safdie
Margaret Qualley performance of the year. Like if Cher starred in POSSESSION...her back does the most insane acting here. That flip-flop walk...
otherwise, Claire Denis directing this movie, where a racist white woman tries to con her way out of being collateral damage under US imperialism because she's deluded into believing her work is Important and her touch is real...you've got your ass in a sling. not sexy or romantic but a secret third thing (drunk). what a crazy diss track on herself and that still doesn't even move the needle, as venomous as it is hollow. not for nothing her most formally accomplished work. Joe Alywnn!? i feel crazy. one of the films ever made.
Stars at Noon is so bloated that all of its fleeting brilliance pales in comparison. Claire Denis clearly is a master of telling a sexually explicit story with style, but with such a meatless story, no magic shall be created here.
Stars at Noon is as political as it's romantic, centering around the lingering romance between two foreigners in Nicaragua during its political unrest, as well as the pandemic. Notorious for its sex scenes during its Cannes premiere, Stars at Noon definitely excels at presenting sexuality as seductive and sweaty as the tropical summer days. Joe Alwyn and Margaret Qualley are simply admirable for baring it for the sake of art, and Denis definitely helped bring out Alwyn's sex appeals…
This is what I get for going into a movie knowing little about it other than who the lead actors are. Awful. So utterly boring and ugly to look at. I’m was trying to use my mind to subliminally tell my friend that we should just walk out.
