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Hollywood hater – David Cronenberg’s latest targets stardom itself

No matter the end result of his challenging films, as a director, David Cronenberg has a killer instinct for drawing out unique and memorable performances from his cast. Which is why watching Robert Pattinson mumble and bumble his way through Cosmopolis (link to trailer redacted, don’t bother!) two years ago was one of the most torturous experiences of my life at the movies.

The good news is Cronenberg seems to have grafted some of the intriguing themes of fame, isolation, wealth and mental illness found in that bore of a film onto a much more meaty narrative with his new picture Maps to the Stars.

Starring John Cusack as a self-help guru (pictured), Julianne Moore and Mia Wasikowska (and yes, Pattinson, who returns in a smaller role), the drama is a cluttered collage of Hollywood dysfunction focusing on a family spiraling after glitz and glamour and struggling to deal with their actor children who face addiction and mental illness.

From the trailer, Moore screaming her head off in the middle of a yoga pose kind of says more about Los Angeles in three seconds than most films do in an hour-and-a-half. Cronenberg’s distaste for the Hollywood machine is unrelenting.

After tepid misfire A Dangerous Method (although Viggo Mortensen was perfect as Sigmund Freud), and the aforementioned Cosmopolis, Maps looks like a rebound for the acclaimed director of The Fly and Crash and should be his strongest entry since 2007’s essential and boiling gangster drama Eastern Promises.

Of course, Cronenberg is a singular talent, one who’s bold and, yes at times, tediously paced and character-driven films leave him with few true peers (Jim Jarmusch, whose Only Lovers Left Alive I reviewed recently, might come closest), but still there is a small crop of directors in his wake who, at times, have shown similar aesthetics and aims.

If you’re a fan of Cronenberg, and particularly his earlier work, give the films of these five directors a look: Gareth Evans with The Raid, Cary Fukunaga with Sin Nombre and True Detective, Nicolas Winding Refn with Drive, Tarsem Singh with The Fall, and Lars von Trier with Melancholia.

Watch the trailer for Maps to the Stars below: