STARLET (2012) **** Dree Hemingway, Besedka Johnson, James Ransone, Stella Maeve. Remarkable big-screen debut for filmmaker Sean Baker and his incredible star, Hemingway (Mariel's daughter) as a blissfully unaware young up-and-coming porn star in sun-baked Cali who strikes up an unlikely friendship with an elderly woman (equally amazing 'newcomer' Johnson) after purchasing at a yard sale turns out a cache of hidden money instilling a sense of guilt - and for her first time - responsibility enacting her to get close to the off-putting octogenarian. With almost an improvisatory pseudo-docu/verite style thanks to Baker's collaboration on an original screenplay with Chris Bergoch, the film slowly deepens its main characters with enough empathy and also cringe-worthy moments of anomie (namely the impressively nasty Maeve as Hemingway's skeezy roomie). Heartfelt, heartrending and poignant as all-get out with enough sentiment, humor and plain honesty rarely seen in film today. A true gem sleeper. Kudos to the adorable Chihuahua pup pet of Hemingway's :D

21 year old porn actress Jane (Dree Hemingway) lives an empty life while getting high with her roommates, Melissa (Stella Maeve) and Mikey (James Ransone). Jane happens upon elderly loner Sadie (Besedka Johnson)'s yard sale which leads to a stash of cash and an unlikely friendship.

Dree is a likable actress with model good looks. She is not seasoned but good enough to play the ingenue. The movie moves at an easy pace. It has a natural feel but does drag in places. Stand out supporting acting comes from Stella Maeve. What it truly needs is more sense of danger that ramps up and increases as the movie advances. It has great possibilities but gets resolved a little too quickly.

Sean Baker, from the few films I've seen from him, has such a tenacious eye and conviction as a director and hand at editing, and his films (well, this and Tangerine and Florida Project, I haven't seen the earlier ones yet) show people in totally unvarnished humanity, and the jagged edges are what leads concurrently to the pathos.

There's some misery and anger and bile and just odd, crude, and rigorously capitalistic times for these characters - in this film, the main character is an actor in porn movies and rooms with a erm less successful and stable one also in the industry and a total dickhead dude-bro (oh James Ransome, quite funny),so her profession is less than what 'normal' society considers respectable - but his film also treats these two main women like fully complicated and spirited people, who can do crappy things and try to do good things and in particular Jane does go into overdrive because it's the only way she knows how. On the surface is could seem to be sloppy in its mis en scene and construction, but that's either ignoring or looking past that it's a deliberate choice and moreover Baker's style reflects this character's heightened state of mind - naturalistic and "documentary to a point, but there's an energy that's different, and this can be seen in Tangerine too. It's cinema that throbs with a state of being like a restlessness, which also reflects youth, too.

Or, other times, he has a heightened sense of pace in some spots and then wisely, as any editor worth his or her or their salt knows, there's got to be some time to calm down on a shot and express space and the lack of a presence, like when they visit the closed down zoo with those empty cages (a stark contrast to a little later when Jane, in her pseudonym, is at a porn convention surrounded by stuff and people and detritus, including her so called airhead friend). And, of course, this is intercut with the part that made me go "oh no" out loud to no one in particular when little Starlet temporarily goes awol. I should also mention Hemingway is good here, stripping away most melodrama or easy comedy for just ...listening and bits of behavior that Baker must have allowed through improv and the like.

It's hard to put into words what makes this and Baker's other films click for me, except that they are ecstatically naturalistic, to turn a Herzogian phrase. But one other point I'd add: he doesn't try to make more of these people, if that makes sense. While someone like Jane may try to be a better person after she finds this long lost/forgotten(ish) money, with varying results, and her roommate can go even more ugly than we might expect, they don't get softened or made into fake BS movie versions of themselves; by the end of Starlet, the catharsis is a lot quieter than one might expect, and the ambiguity if it's there is maybe unnecessary, but it fits in a satisfying way. And last but not least, Beskeda Johnson, dog bless you in your one and only performance!