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| Source: Imdb |
Watching this fictional biopic about a pop singer, produced by Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Sia, of all people, constantly had me thinking “What a weird project”. Starting out with unexpected graphic violence, the story follows young Celeste on her way to stardom. In places, the film feels very much like a satire, being about a girl who can’t sing and appears to have no feeling for rhythm just getting lucky to get a host of supporters who want to cash in on her sentimental value. But Celeste learns to play the game, and particularly in the second part of the film, where Natalie Portman gives a delightful performance as slightly deranged, power-drunk superstar, she appears very much entangled in her own web. Jude Law impresses as caring, but slightly off-beat manager. However, the creative choice to have Raffey Cassidy portray both young Celeste and her teenage daughter had me endlessly confused. As the film does do some time-jumping, I got so bamboozled for a while that I literally lost the plot. The overall message of the film seemed a bit vague, but I do appreciate the look at modern music industry from the inside.
As a project, this film was well-made. The script had an experimental, arthouse-y tone to I that appeared intentional, like someone wanted to make a slightly different kind of movie. This led to some interesting shots and scenes. They had a few really long takes in there, which I always enjoy. Overall – and this may seem odd for a music film – the runtime spent too many minutes on musical performances, though. The final show did not seem like a culmination. Rather, it was quite boring to watch and I was waiting for there to be a point, some event sparked by the on-stage gyrating that would continue the story… but the film just ended there, after having to endure a medley of Sia B-sides and some bad dancing in atrocious costumes.
Overall, this was absolutely not what I expected. I’m tempted to put it in the arthouse category. For not holding my attention and generally failing to establish a firm plot, I’m giving it 2/5.
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