December 7–14, 2000

movie shorts

Stardom

Better directors than Denys Arcand have stumbled trying to satirize the fashion industry (Robert Altman, for one). How do you mock people who thrive on their own foolishness? Structured as if torn from the footage of a hundred cameras — fashion journalists, MTV clones, news reports, even the obligatory documentary crew — Stardom follows the career of a young Canadian (Jessica Paré) who goes from high school hockey star to supermodel to trophy wife, all the while making no comment more profound than that the only people more shallow than celebrities are those who are obsessed with them. Gee. With his parade of hyperkinetic veejays and publicly genial but privately abusive businessmen, Arcand no doubt thinks he’s savaging the pawns of capitalist excess, but what he really shows is that he isn’t in on the joke. There’s no authenticity (or even purposeful fraudulence) to creations like "Entertainment Daily" and "the VHF Fashion Awards"; they’re just cheap knock-offs of real brand-names, veiled references with no teeth. The lack of real starpower dulls the point further — Dan Aykroyd and Frank Langella do not The Player make. The star-making machinery is so mind-bogglingly complex it takes a similarly complex approach to take it on. Stardom isn’t even close.

—Sam Adams