I really liked it as well, and thought it was handily her stronger 2022 feature. The complaint that the plot takes a while to cohere is a bit funny to me since narrative has almost always taken a backseat to rhythm in Denis' films (and the rhythms here are exquisite). It's true perhaps, but then one could also argue the same for
To Have and Have Not, one of the films I thought of while watching this American adrift abroad. Of course, it's a matter of personal taste whether one finds Denis' study of Margaret Qualley—the way she strolls down the street, the way she sticks her head out the window in a cab, the way she carries her shoes or slips out of her dress; her skin, her hair in the humidity, and (especially) her wide, expressive eyes as she steels herself for sex or watches Daniel from afar—as compelling as Hawks' study of the chemistry between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. But unlike the electricity that powers Hawks' film, I think the mismatch between Trish and Daniel here is sort of the point. I haven't read the novel, but Denis has
said that it's a novel about "two people who are not meant to be together."
Like Petzold's
Transit, this isn't exactly a love story so much as a failed attempt at a love story between two people who are thrust together due to tumultuous political circumstances. They have both been "cut loose," to use Trish's words, he from his handlers, she from her employers and the political contacts she's been sleeping with. When she tells a group of indifferent locals that she doesn't have any Yankee amigos, the frightening admission is that she is truly, utterly alone. The point isn't smolder or passion, it's desperation. And there is something really desperate and achingly human about the way these two people throw themselves at and cling to each other when they are all each other has in a foreign land, each in way over their heads. When Trish tearfully clutches Daniel after her confrontation with the Costa Rican police, or when Denis' camera lingers on their hands as they grasp each other before making a big decision, or when Trish just repeats, "Cover me up, cover me up..." I found myself very moved. Because Denis' filmmaking remains so sumptuous and tactile, questions of chemistry never entered my mind. I simply believe it when these two are clawing at each other. I like the way Denis & Gautier slowly introduce color into the love scenes, beginning with the pallid nighttime scene in Daniel's hotel hours after they first meet when their relationship is purely transactional (she needs money, he wants sex), all the way to that beautiful slow dance bathed in purple, all alone together.
And like
Transit (which also places a period piece into a modern context, albeit one with a much larger intervening time interval),
Stars at Noon is a film that takes stasis and obstruction as its central motifs. There is a practically dizzying array of barriers in the film, barriers which are invisible, bureaucratic, pecuniary. Trish must beg to use the phone, pay a bribe to make a video call. She is barred from using a door to exit, blocked from eating breakfast at a hotel buffet ("Guests only"). She can't leave the country without a passport (held up because of her "stupid articles"), can't get a plane ticket without American dollars, can't change her córdobas into dollars without a passport. Daniel can't access his hotel room because the Costa Rican police are camped outside it, and when he tries to speak to the receptionist on the phone he's unable to communicate with her without a knowledge of Spanish—the barrier of language. At one point late in the film, their car gets stuck in a deep puddle on the way across the border, and Denis' camera lingers on some soldiers passing by in the opposite direction as they trudge through the water, something of a cruel sight gag. The pandemic slots in so naturally to these concerns, not only adding to the ambient air of unease but also providing one more barrier for entry into buildings or across borders. Another layer of confinement.
At every moment in this film we are acutely aware of the limits of the world Trish finds herself in which are dictated by governments and money—in other words,
“the exact dimensions of hell”. (Take a shot every time money is mentioned or exchanged—you'd end up drunker than Trish pretty quickly!) Her little motel room is a temporary oasis in part because it has the backdoor built for when the building operated as a brothel, which promises both freedom of movement (clients can come and go as they please) and privacy, a precious commodity that is all but nonexistent in this world of constant surveillance, tracking, and monitoring. (Sound familiar?)
Regarding the political situation in the film being both "dated" and "vaguely sketched," for me it's precisely the latter that precludes the former. CIA spooks meddling in foreign affairs will never go out of style; it's not like the US has drastically departed from its exploitative foreign policy in the last few decades even if the geography has shifted. So Benny Safdie arrives channeling Peter Bogdanovich's slimy Singapore operator in
Saint Jack (which might make for an interesting double bill with
Stars at Noon, two films about sex and exile, a pimp and a prostitute). He complains about the lack of manners he observes among Trish and the locals when ordering food, making sure to always say "please" and "thank you" himself to the waitress refilling his drink. The irony is painfully apparent, a politeness that belies the systematic raping of the region on behalf of the United States' interests. (A key line: "Don't you know what a delusional asshole he is? Giving charts and documents and a whole economic future to a rogue state?" "Rogue" as in not kowtowing to the US, "future" as in freedom). Trish's direct manner is far more honest; she knows the score, knows that this world runs on transactions. Note too the comparative ease with which the CIA man moves through the world, materializing in the COVID tent as if by magic. Or when he addresses a bartender in English and doesn't care at all that the man can't understand him; the language barrier does not exist for powerful men like himself.
I'm also intrigued by the way Trish occasionally voices this imperialist mentality herself, telling the cab driver his car stinks or yelling in a moment of frustration about "American tanks coming and crushing your hopeless country." And the two leave some significant destruction in their wake:
Daniel causes the cab driver to be executed, and Trish's offer to buy off a man's car leads to it being set ablaze. Denis makes a point of showing us the tears in his eyes while the smoke rises and the couple flees. These aren't exactly their fault, being as they are acts of violence perpetrated by powerful state actors. They are simply there, suggesting that there are no right moves to make when one is the target of a hostile government, another layer in a film where exploitation and state violence are never front and center but always more than a mere backdrop.
I'm not quite sure what to make of the final exchange between Trish and Daniel, which seems a bit too underplayed for what it is: a final extinguishment of love. But the final scene between Trish and Subtenente Verga is a perfectly bleak note to end on, for me more chilling than the final shot of Bastards. Very early on in the film Trish tells Daniel, only half-jokingly, "We're all for sale." By the end, Denis seems to conclude this is true. We are all pawns to much larger forces that remain vague and remote. The world demands that everyone have a price, so everyone is a whore. The best we can do is hope that whoever comes along to fuck us is somewhat agreeable.