Review: Broken Star

A solidly constructed riff on the kind of paranoid, B-movie thrillers that Alfred Hitchcock and Brian De Palma are best remembered for, first time feature director Dave Schwep and screenwriter David Brant’s Broken Star doesn’t reinvent or subvert genre conventions in any way, but it’s fine enough for what it is. Boasting standout performances from leading actors that have been cast somewhat against type, Broken Star balances psychologically interesting material with borderline sleazy tendencies to good effect. Like many decent, if unexceptional thrillers in the same vein, it’s easier to describe this as “effective” than “excellent.” Broken Star steals from the best, contains enough novel twists to remain interesting, and never wears out its welcome by straining the viewer’s suspension of disbelief to the point of snapping.

Markey Marlowe (Analeigh Tipton) is a fame addicted, TMZ ready starlet who believes that any attention is good attention. But following a dispute with her demanding mother (Lauren Bowles) and fame hungry younger sister (Addyson Bell), Markey is sentenced to house arrest stemming from assault and drug possession charges. To get her out of the public eye for a bit, Markey’s personal assistant and only true friend (Monique Coleman) gets the budding trainwreck a secluded place to serve out her sentence. It’s an attached home with no landline, no internet, almost nothing to read, and a barely functioning television. Living next door to her is Daryl (Tyler Labine), her landlord; a reclusive type that keeps himself since the death of his grandmother, who lived in Markey’s current dwelling. Seeking any sort of attention that she can find, Markey strikes up an uneasy friendship and understanding with Daryl. She finds the attention she craves from Daryl, but when she discovers her landlord’s secret fetish for celebrity culture, she also finds a way to potentially manipulate him into exacting revenge on her enemies.

Broken Star plays out like what might have happened if Norman Bates and Marion Crane somehow found common ground and decided to team up in their criminal endeavours, and Schwep and Brant wear their cinematic inspirations proudly on their sleeves. Every frame of Broken Star is so deeply indebted to Hitchcock and his modernist successor Brian De Palma that it tap dances on the line between homage and plagiarism. Schwep (who has a background in cinematography) has seemingly never met a voyeuristic appearing camera shot that he didn’t adore, often shooting from wide angles, backseats, or seemingly impossible vantage points. When she’s feeling lonely, Markey will don a platinum blonde wig and sun herself on the lawn. In the absence of external stimuli, Markey will turn mirrors on herself to feel less alone while she sleeps. Daryl’s home is full of surveillance equipment, including a decidedly Rear Window-esque telescope. None of this is original, and Schwep and Brant deserve some credit for not trying to be precious or obtuse about whom they’re cribbing from. These visual and narrative nods would only be opaque to anyone who hasn’t seen a Hitchcock film before, so Broken Star doubles down on embracing its own B-movie roots.

There’s also a great amount of patience in Schwep and Brant’s storytelling. Broken Star boasts a lot of casual character development before setting its actual throughline into motion. Markey’s plan to manipulate and use Daryl doesn’t take shape until around the halfway point. It’s a smart move, since neither character is exactly endearing or likable, and their plans are pretty straightforward and less than complex. Even if the viewer doesn’t like following these people, Broken Star makes it a point to formulate a considerable amount of interest in what they’re going to do next. It’s another assuredly Hitchcockian/De Palmian thing to do, but when so many lesser films have attempted similar riffs and botched even a simple trip from point A to point B, there’s something about Broken Star that strikes as novel and welcome. This kind of material, tone, and technicality has been handled far worse in the past, which makes it hard to knock Schwep’s straightforward approach.

The main reasons to watch, however, are Tipton and Labine, who play exceptionally well off each other and are clearly giving their all to roles that neither performer is often granted. Tipton has the showier part playing a woman who doesn’t know how to stop being a character and start acting like herself. It’s a difficult role to play because she’ll often have to bounce around between being a fame seeking phony and an honestly frightened, confused, and angry young woman. It’s always fascinating to watch where Tipton takes the character. Meanwhile, the usually comically cast Labine sinks his teeth into Daryl’s social awkwardness and gruff demeanor, balancing the character’s initially innocuous nature with a sense of impending danger. I’m sure Labine studied Anthony Perkins for his performance here, but his work in Broken Star certainly showcases another skill set for the actor that often goes unseen. Even when the film around them is like staring at a boilerplate, they’re always able to elevate the material.

I suppose it’s a demerit that outside of some easily taken potshots at modern celebrity culture, Broken Star never does much to set itself apart from a litany of other similarly themed and indebted, character driven thrillers. It’s not exactly a film that aims for the middle, since making a thriller in this vein and tenor comes with a high degree of difficulty. Broken Star feels every bit like a debut feature, especially in how it unabashedly leans into every genre defining convention that came before it. It’s taking liberally from difficult, ambitious filmmakers, but the film itself isn’t exactly ambitious or difficult. It’s a film so rigidly set on getting the mood and tone just-so-right that there’s little room for experimentation. And yet, Schwep and company do everything they can to make their variation on these themes into something modestly enjoyable. One could argue that there are so many bad Hitchcock and De Palma rip-offs that the bar set for Broken Star is already as low as it can go. Still, clearing a bar is clearing a bar.

Broken Star opens in select Canadian cinemas and on VOD on Friday, July 20, 2018.

Check out the trailer for Broken Star: