VOD Releases: Starlight (2012) - Reviewed



I won’t lie; I would have never even given Starlight a second glance if it didn’t have Iggy Pop on the cover. I grew up listening to The Stooges and have followed Iggy Pop’s career in the many years after. So when Starlight was shown to me, I was more than happy to take the film for a ride. I have read interviews with Iggy where he literally states that he does not make barely any money from his extensive library of music he has worked on, which is a shame. So, it makes sense to see his IMDB page growing with actor role credits over the years.

Starlight tries really hard to be an art film. Unfortunately, it comes off as being an art film for an art films sake. I mean, I enjoy long shots of the tide coming up on the beach, and I enjoy observational shots as such, but it all comes off very pretentious with the way it is presented in Starlight.

It is obvious that Iggy Pop was used as the star power in Starlight featuring him on the cover and more or less as the star of this film. Problem is Iggy only gets about 5 minutes tops of screen time during the 91 minute challenge of watching Starlight. I understood the premise of Iggy’s character in Starlight, but perhaps it would have been a better move to actually give him some lines in the film? The whole thing just comes off as flimsy and disingenuous frankly, with literally using Iggy as a pawn and not giving the man any much deserved ‘real’ screen time.

Starlight is a clumsy film with the plot stumbling along like a drunk walking up hill. It tries to make it somewhere, but it just does not have enough steam to get there.

Regardless of all of Starlight’s flaws, there are some very strong performances by the supporting cast in this film. Béatrice Dalle of Inside is intense and very sexy playing Zohra. She is rough and beautiful in her delivery as an antagonist in Starlight. Denis Lavant was able to also match Béatrice’s delivery in Starlight. Frankly, they were the two saving graces of this film.


I really tried to get invested in Starlight but unfortunately, there is just too much transparency here for the film to hold any real substance.

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-Scott W. Lambert