Not to state the obvious, but if there’s one thing any remotely romantically-tinged movie needs to succeed, palpable chemistry between the two leads is a requirement. Unfortunately, even with a pair of individually solid performances, literary adaptation Stars at Noon fell woefully short.
Despite the presence of acclaimed filmmaker Claire Denis behind the camera and the might of independent powerhouse A24 backing the production, reviews were solid without being anywhere close to spectacular, with the glaring lack of sparks between Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn being singled out.
The story sounded ripe for sensuous thriller, too, with an American journalist and an English businessman engaging in a passionate affair after they both end up in Nicaragua for very different reasons, only for a labyrinthine conspiracy to emerge that ultimately drags them both into a web of lies, deceit, and conspiratorial chatter that forces them to make hasty plans for an escape back to safer soil.
Stars at Noon was significantly less than the sum of its parts, then, but streaming subscribers definitely don’t mind after FlixPatrol revealed it to be one of the most-watched features on both iTunes and Google Play in the early stage of the week, which is a decent enough turnaround for something that netted less than $90,000 at the box office during its limited theatrical run.
Despite what people may think, A24 isn’t quite the unstoppable hit factory that many believe it to be, although Stars at Noon is in no way a crime against cinema; it just isn’t as good as it should have been given the talent and premise.