Rating: R | Runtime: 135 minutes
Release Date: October 14th, 2022 (USA) / June 14th, 2023 (France)
Studio: Ad Vitam / A24
Director(s): Claire Denis
Writer(s): Claire Denis, Léa Mysius & Andrew Litvack / Denis Johnson (novel The Stars at Noon)

You have the kind of good manners that eventually get you killed.

Trish (Margaret Qualley) is a journalist in Nicaragua who’s run out of money, favors, and utility in her pursuit to finally leave its corruption behind. Daniel (Joe Alwyn) works for an oil company sent to scout the area for reserves and political imbalance who eventually finds himself out of favor with the government and pursued by both Costa Rican police and the CIA.

They come together for escape only to discover they’re the other’s only hope for staying alive. The question then becomes whether self-preservation trumps whatever romance has seemingly blossomed between them. Are they both whores to the system or does love still mean something?

Based on Denis Johnson’s novel, Claire Denis’ Stars at Noon (adapted alongside Andrew Litvack and Léa Mysius) refuses to explain the historically specific plotlines of the Nicaraguan civil war to make us care about the environment or understand how the characters fit in. And if we don’t care about those backdropped circumstances proving contextually crucial to the action on-screen, how does Trish or Daniel become a three-dimensional figure at risk of jail or execution because of them?

I couldn’t therefore invest in their well-being or their relationship because they were both introduced as users willing to climb over the backs of anyone who served their means for advancement. Why should I believe anything about them is real?

The tears don’t work. Not after Daniel calls Trish out for faking them (even though Qualley delivers a wonderful performance that’s able to tell us when her manipulations have ceased). Fear doesn’t work either since neither is afraid to put themselves in danger right up until they realize their false sense of power has evaporated. So, we’re made to watch their two-plus-hour escape without any real connection to what’s happening.

Chemistry is built by having Trish enjoy sex with Daniel after depicting how she doesn’t enjoy it with the other men she’s using. Suspense is built by villains threatening them without ever once acting on those threats. It’s two people in a complicated world that’s glossed over so their lust takes the spotlight. A tease of intrigue fizzling out every time we fool ourselves into believing a payoff may yet arrive.

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(L-R) Joe Alwyn and Margaret Qualley in STARS AT NOON; courtesy of A24.