Hollywood Stargirl

Hollywood Stargirl
Original title:Hollywood Stargirl
Director:Julia Hart
Release:Disney+
Running time:103 minutes
Release date:03 june 2022
Rating:
Stargirl's destiny as she prepares to travel to California with her mother Ana, hired to make costumes for a movie in Los Angeles. The young girl, who hopes to make her dreams come true and become a professional singer, meets a wide variety of characters, including Mr. Mitchell, her neighbor; brothers Evan and Terrell, two aspiring directors; and Roxanne Martel, a musician she admires.

Mulder's Review

To all the dreamers who are building tomorrow's world

We hoped one day to discover a sequel to the film Stargirl (https://mulderville.net/fr/critiques/5369/stargirl) which had managed to move us deeply and which had revealed the young and talented actress Grace VanderWaal.  The first film took place in the small town of Mica, Arizona, and dealt with the passage from childhood to adolescence and the first feelings of love, reminding us how fragile and ephemeral life is. In the same way the music occupied an important place in the story by the presence of the main character Susan Caraway, a young atypical singer who invented a name for herself, that of Stargirl. The first film ended with Stargirl and her mother Ana (Judy Greer) leaving for another city in the United States.  

As its name suggests, this second part takes place in Los Angeles and we discover that Stargirl's mother has been hired as a costume designer on a movie. New departure, new city for Stargirl always accompanied by her pet rat Cinnamon. She will quickly bond with new people from different backgrounds, whether it be brothers Evan (Elijah Richardson) and Terrell (Tyrel Jackson Williams), who aspire to be filmmakers, Mr. Mitchell (Judd Hirsch), one of Stargirl's neighbors, and Roxanne Martel (Uma Thurman), a musician that Stargirl admires because her mother had her album. Between the shooting of a promising movie, the discovery of the beautiful city of Los Angeles, the music always occupies an equally important place and brings us a real immersion and nostalgia of the past time and the mistakes that changed the direction of our future.

 If Hollywood Stargirl is as striking as the first film, it is because we find intact the universe so particular of the first film. We find the same team: director and co-writer Julia Hart, writer Jordan Horowitz, director of photography Bryce Fortner ("Portlandia"), production designer Gae Buckley (The Book of Eli), costume designer Natalie O'Brien (The Bad Batch), editor Tracey Wadmore Smith, ACE (Fool's Gol") and Shayar Bhansali (Standing Up, Falling Down) and music producer Nick Baxter (One Night in Miami), who, along with Michael Penn (Boogie Nights, Masters of Sex, Girls), is the film's executive music producer. Certainly three years separate the two films and the world was affected by the global pandemic of covid 19 and this period had a real impact on the writing of this film and its much more morose orientation in which Stargirl will have to not only find her place but also a new love to continue to be able to write new songs and see the world with her different eyes.

As in the first film, Stargirl tries to help those around her and give people that life has hurt a second chance. After changing the lives of many students at Mica High forever, she will help and listen to a grumpy neighbor, two brothers who want to make their first movie or her mother who will have to make a difficult choice due to professional worries. Once again, the young actress Grace VanderWaal is perfect and her many songs make this Disney+ original film a must-see.

This second part certainly takes a real distance from Jerry Spinelli's work and deals with creative inspiration and the difficulties of following one's dreams with restraint and intelligence. No city in the world could correspond to the world of cinema, of its numerous shootings, of existential doubts. Stargirl has grown up like the fans we are part of from the first film and the ingenious scenario continues to touch us with the emotion it raises. Far from being a simple little comedy, Hollywood Stargirl would have really deserved to be discovered in a movie theater and to make us travel through our emotions with Stargirl. We can only advise you to see and rewatch this movie that we had the chance to discover already twice and others will follow as it was the case for Stargirl. 

Hollywood Stargirl
Directed by Julia Hart
Written by Jordan Horowitz, Julia Hart
Based on Characters by Jerry Spinelli
Produced by Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Lee Stollman
Starring Grace VanderWaal, Elijah Richardson, Tyrel Jackson Williams, Judy Greer, Judd Hirsch, Uma Thurman
Cinematography : Bryce Fortner
Edited by Shayar Bhansali, Tracey Wadmore-Smith
Music by Michael Penn
Production companies : Walt Disney Pictures, Gotham Group
Distributed by Disney+
Release dates : May 23, 2022 (El Capitan Theatre), June 3, 2022 (United States)
Running time : 103 minutes

Seen on May 18, 2022 and on May 31, 2022 (Screener press Disney+)

Mulder's Mark: