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TRIBECA 2020

Review: Stardust

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- Johnny Flynn plays a young David Bowie, embarking on his first US tour, in Gabriel Range’s meagre biopic which contains not one note of the legend’s music

Review: Stardust
Johnny Flynn in Stardust

Musician biopics often seem to operate at one remove: a creative act that will always be judged harshly against its brilliant inspiration. Stardust [+see also:
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, from British filmmaker Gabriel Range, tackles David Bowie, one of the most beloved musicians of the past 50 years, and one whom a few directors, such as Todd Haynes and Danny Boyle, have tried and failed to make an officially authorised film on. Range is hindered in his task by lacking the rights to his musical back catalogue, but employs some canny tricks to turn this to his advantage. The film was scheduled to premiere at this month’s cancelled Tribeca Film Festival, which was moved to an online edition. Instead, the producers have chosen to launch the feature as an invite-only virtual screening exclusively for industry audiences.

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Bowie fans were bemused to learn about the project early last year, as it would be missing the glorious sounds of his music. But in a cinematic era where Bohemian Rhapsody [+see also:
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and Rocketman [+see also:
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interview: Dexter Fletcher
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coast along as illustrated greatest-hits playlists, there is some logic to Range’s unorthodox approach. Stardust takes us to an era where Bowie was barely Bowie, his artistic voice still germinating, trying on musical costumes (Deep Purple-ish hard rock, whimsical literary folk) that don’t quite fit. Johnny Flynn dons the cream brocade dress and floppy hat of his The Man Who Sold the World era and offers quite a convincing impression. Still, the film can’t escape the weird cognitive dissonance of seeing so much authentic Bowie imagery and style (its vintage store costumes are a treat), but not hearing the lilting, familiar tones of “Space Oddity”, “Starman” and others.

Stardust opens with Bowie sitting glumly with his wife Angela (Jena Malone) in a dimly lit record-industry office. He’s feeling like a bit of an underachiever as his manager Terry Defries (Julian Richings) reminds him of a string of underperforming singles and the need to change the public perception of his work. So a US promotional tour is organised, his first trip to the country, where his label publicist Ron Oberman (podcasting maven and comedian Marc Maron) will shepherd him from coast to coast, trying to fix meetings with influential journos and get his music on commercial radio.

This material is broad and sketchy, with the script in particular struggling to seem authentic as it shows the music-industry machinations involved in selling talent. Luckily, we have Maron in tow offering a spin on his podcasting persona, bursting with enthusiasm for rock music and seeming gleeful to just be spending time with artistic legends. This plot strand begins to dovetail with an element delving more into Bowie’s psychology, faced as he was with a beloved older half-brother who introduced him to music and art, but who struggled with serious hereditary mental illness his entire life. Range and screenwriter Chris Bell here find the most compelling reason for the film to exist: Bowie’s life is so mythologised, yet we seldom hear about the looming spectre of madness and schizophrenia he felt, which clearly fed the personas and alternate selves of his art.

Ultimately, the film is hard to recommend because it’s so partial in its scope. The material about his early artistic influences and upbringing is pertinent, but it really deserves a movie as unpredictable and dazzling as its muse.

Stardust is a UK production staged by Paul Van Carter and Nick Taussig for Salon Pictures, and Matt Code for Wildling Pictures. International sales are courtesy of Film Constellation.

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