If someone is somewhere and somehow – Newspaper Kommersant No. 66 (7511) dated 04/15/2023

At the box office – “Stars at Noon” by Claire Denis, awarded the Grand Prix at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. Denis, author of the cannibalistic sex ballad Trouble Every Day (2001), was once deservedly considered the most radical French director. Mikhail Trofimenkov for two and a half hours of viewing, I did not understand what the main characters were doing and why Denis disliked Nicaragua so much.

In Nicaragua, there are problems with Wi-Fi, tropical showers are whipping, the national currency is depreciated and you can’t buy Coca-Cola for any money – only a sprite. Masked submachine gunners at every step. Civilians too, however: there is a pandemic in the country. Denis moved the action of the novel by Denis Johnson from the 1980s, when the country was raging with a civil war, to the present day. The “usurper” Daniel Ortega is to blame for all this. The legendary revolutionary has been ruling the country since 2007, he is not going to retire, but, frankly, he compares favorably with most regional colleagues.

However, political nuances are not important to Denis: only the atmosphere, the abyss of heaven, the ballet of armed shadows. By and large, this is not scary, but boring and monotonous. But Denis seems to be in solidarity with the American Trish (the gypsy beauty Margaret Qualley from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), who is shouting through the streets of Managua: “Fucking country, American tanks will crush you.” The bloody regime for some reason terribly got on this journalist, as she certifies herself. Strange, however, from her journalist.

Having contracted to write an article about Nicaragua for some travel magazine, she wrote about kidnappings and murders. The editor (John C. Reilly with the wildest haircut) naturally threw non-core material into the trash, so the unpublished article can hardly explain the girl’s misadventures. When Trish once again began to hang noodles on his ears about her creative plans, she sent the offending freelancer to the scrap. What else to do with her?

Why did she come here at all? To “find out the exact dimensions of hell,” as the girl pathetically declares? I would rather go to Somalia, Mexico or Yemen: there is a hell of a hell, in contrast to a moderately authoritarian republic. But Trish does not make any professional gestures for the entire film.

She only curses the whole wide world, starting with the “garbage” hotel in which she lives, pumped up with rum and sleeps with everything that moves. With the local military – for patronage, with a handsome Englishman Daniel (Joe Alvin) in white pants and with a hidden gun – for money. The rate is 50 USD per night. The following nights are free: love, you know. Half a dozen erotic scenes, however, do not provoke any emotions, not only among the audience, but even among on-screen lovers. Air conditioning works, well, well.

Daniel, who allegedly works for an oil company, has also been attacked by all the forces of hell for some reason. And the regime, and some grease-lined punisher from Costa Rica, also a very scary country, and a deceptively plush CIA agent (Benny Safdie). Run, run, run. But Trish and Daniel are running from the ghouls as slowly and senselessly as everything they do on the screen.

Trish takes off her panties, Trish puts on her panties. Trish takes off her shoes, Trish puts on her shoes. Daniel is undressing, Daniel is dressing. Trish orders a glass of rum, Trish demands to repeat the order. The stalkers pin Trish in the corner, spitting and making inarticulate threats. The pursuers release Trish. The persecutors get something from Trish and Daniel, but their cunning is only enough to evict Daniel from the hotel, and Trish from the motel. “I got caught,” Daniel states.

In the meantime, someone is killed by driving a mobile phone down the throat, something is set on fire, someone is shot, but they do not hit. In fact, “someone”, “something”, “for some reason”, “for some reason” are the only words that can describe the action of the film. Unless, of course, what is happening on the screen can generally be called an action.