Claire Denis loves Margaret Qualley's face. In her long
and distinguished career filming brilliant actresses, I
cannot remember a film of hers with so many close-ups
lavished on a woman. The cinematography by Eric Gaultier
contributes to that impression; the lighting is so bright
and the focus so sharp, Qualley is illuminated as though
a million stars truly shine upon her. Despite the
persistent rain in the fictional Nicaragua (with Panama
standing in), even in the dank interior of fleabag motels,
there is hardly any shadow; _Stars at Noon_ must the
least "noirish" of spy noirs.

Trish's dark tresses and colloquial Spanish could easily
pass for those of a Nicaraguan, but her green eyes give
her away. She does not belong there but has neither the
cash or passport to leave. She fancies herself a journalist
but has drifted into quasi-prostitution. Rum shots and
vodka keep the tears and shame at bay. Resourceful,
voluble, and defiant, she is far removed from Denis'
typical zen-like protagonists. Her clients/protectors
include a police Subteniente and a Vice Minister of
something or other, and rich international hotel
visitors from whom she steals shampoo, toilet paper
rolls.

One day a thinly disguised British "contractor" (Joe
Alwyn) -- blond, pale of skin -- hooks up at the bar.
He is a classic Denis cipher, spare of words. We
all know this type,: good looking and cocksure, but
is thoroughly incompetent in the field; he cannot
speak a word of Spanish. But she finds in him a
soulmate, knight in white armor. Maybe she is the
dark exotic beauty he has always dreamed of. Soon he
is cut loose by his employers, loses his gun, and is
hunted by Costa Rica agents and US handlers for trying
to subvert someone's election (it is never made clear
whose).

They escape into the forest, hotly pursued by an
omnipresent clean-cut CIA man (Bennie Safdie). The
road up the river as quasi-colonial hell, or the
heart of darkness, is a motif Denis has used in _White
Materials_ and _L'Intrus_. (The film touchingly ends
with a tribute to Michel Subor who starred in one of
those.) The pair clings on to each other, two against
the world, increasingly destitute, his white suit
drenched in sweat, then blood. One wishes Denis has
paid more attention to Nicaraguans who are fleeing to
the US en mass, but growing up with African Otherness
she is certainly entitled to her vision. The public
spaces are instead saturated with police armed in
military gear (a short-hand indictment of US influence)
and COVID era face-masks. The locals are mostly in
the service sectors (motel owner Monica Bartholomew,
bar-tenders, a taxi-driver who gets a cell-phone stuffed
down his throat). Trish finally succumbs to the CIA
bribe and gives up her lover.

The screenplay is based on a novel by Denis Johnson,
who also wrote _Jesus' Son_ to glorify drugs and booze.
There are drugs and booze aplenty in Denis' _Beau
Travail_, and pale vampires wasting away in _Trouble
Everyday_ and elsewhere. But _Stars at Noon_ is a
significant departure, with Denis' trademark languid
cinematography playing second fiddle to the lead
actress's dynamism. (Even Mia Goth's and Beatrice
Dalle's murderous exploits have a stately, dreamlike
pace; Qualley is just a live-wire.) I have disliked
Huppert's nervous energy in _White Materials_, but
I can absolutely get behind this new survivor of a
heroine. Maybe they will work together again, perhaps
in a sequel to this film?

------------------------------------------------------

_The Last Thing He Wanted_ is also based on a book about
Central America -- Joan Didion's prosecutorial novel of
the same name. Like so many of her books, I can barely
remember the plot but instantly recognize the prose
reproduced in the film's prologue and sprinkled
throughout. Unlike _Stars at Noon_, this film is not
updated to present day, but stays in the hellish 80s
when the CIA ran amok and Ronald Reagan's White House
broke numerous laws selling arms to Iran and using the
proceeds to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua. Anne
Hatheway is the Central America reporter yanked from
her beat, only to return to the troubled land when her
ailing arms-dealer father (Willem Dafoe in a brief but
unforgettable performance) debutizes her to track a
million dollar shipment. She is stranded on an island
and finally killed by a US agent (Ben Affleck) she
mistakes for a kindred lost soul.

The first-person framing device in the novel is given
short-drift and there are many changes from the book.
But on the whole, the film and Hathaway are unfairly
criticized. Any film shining a harsh light on the
Reagan era (strangely ignored even by the "liberal"
media) is most welcome. (I once supported Reagan,
at an age when his gross betrayal would never be
forgiven.) Hathaway started out as a wonderfully
expressive actress not afraid to take on edgy roles
(_Havoc_, _Brokeback Mountain_, _Rachel Getting
Married_). Then she lost her way, too busy being
America's Kooky Sweetheart. Here she plays a breast
cancer survivor, her trademark wide smile waning,
lacking conviction. She may not be Margaret Qualley
in the Denis film, but she is good. And if you have
read the novel or remembered the pompous Secretary
of State George Shultz, you would not have been
confused by the plot.

------------------------------------------------------
Speaking of Denis again, I once had the honor to be
in the audience at her Q&A session at the New York Film
Festival. She was sweet and self-deprecating, taking
photographs of us like a tourist. Her host and mediator
happened to be Noah Baumbach, who had done nothing of
note but was standoffish and arrogant, putting on the
act of the Great New York Artist.

He still hasn't done anything. I caught up with his
overpraised _Marriage Story_. It opens with monologues
by spouses Adam Driver and Scarlet Johansson describing
each other (at a marriage counselor's or divorce lawyer's
office, it turns out). What should have been a brisk
homage to the French New Wave is over-stretched into
an interminable recital of petty details (her strong
arm muscles open stuck jars!). Baumbach is clearly from
the Olivier Assayas school of mistaking banality for
profundity. Worse, the opening belies an awful
narcissism, as if the film doesn't need to establish
that the protagonists are interesting people before
swamping us with their banal idiosyncrasies. The
film would only go downhill from there; most of the
scenes would have been called "TV-style" if that
weren't an insult to most TV camera work these days.
The nadir comes at an endless meeting between Driver's
character and his lawyer about child custody. The
film is transparently drawn from Baumbach's own divorce
from his then-actress-wife. Why anyone would find it
original or deep is anyone's guess, but many critics
hailed it as a masterpiece, even better than Claire
Denis' _High Life_, they said! (Welcome to the Death of
Cinema.) And if you want to claim that the acting is
anywhere near Chastain's and Isaac's in their "Scene
From a Marriage" -- well, please don't even go there.
After a while the film got too annoying even as white noise
while I worked, and I had to turn it off.

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