StarletMovie Reviews

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Avg. Critic Score: 74 out of 100 Generally favorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
17 not for kids
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 91
    Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum

    Sean Baker's singular little ultra-indie is a strikingly unsentimental study in female friendship between unmoored souls in L.A.'s bleached, glamour-challenged San Fernando Valley. Read full review

  • 90
    The Hollywood Reporter | John DeFore

    A mismatched-friends drama whose overall sensitivity is belied by a couple of clumsily contrived plot points, Sean Baker's Starlet pairs story and setting perfectly. Read full review

  • 80
    NPR | Scott Tobias

    Starlet shows enough of her unbalanced, unsustainable situation to make sense of her connection to Sadie, however frail a ballast her new friend might be. Their need for each other is disarmingly sweet, but far from sticky. Read full review

  • 75
    Philadelphia Inquirer | Steven Rea

    Starlet sneaks up on you. Set in the same sun-dried, strip-malled precincts of the San Fernando Valley where "Boogie Nights" took place - and set, in part, in that same porn industry milieu - Sean Baker's low-key, low-budget indie traces the relationship that develops between a young actress and an isolated, elderly woman. Read full review

  • 75
    Chicago Tribune | Michael Phillips

    It's an odd film in some ways. The porn milieu is detailed in ways at once sparing, in terms of actual screen time, and bluntly explicit. The odd-couple relationship guiding the story has its familiarities. But where it counts, 'Starlet' ... allows its characters room to maneuver within the potential cliches. Read full review

  • 75
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    The film itself deserves praise for its portraits of these two women and the different worlds they inhabit. Read full review

  • 63
    Slant Magazine | Diego Costa

    The film works as a charming aesthetic exercise with its jerky camera and inadvertent cuts, as a contemplation on intergenerational female bonding. Read full review

  • 63
    New York Post | Sara Stewart

    Jane's friendship with Sadie is the one thing that cuts through the numbness - though the film's so low-key, even emotional revelations feel pretty muted. Read full review

  • 60
    Time Out New York | Joshua Rothkopf

    Dree Hemingway, daughter of Mariel, commits to some unnecessary nudity, but also impresses with her subtlety. Read full review

  • 50
    Washington Post | Michael O'Sullivan

    The relationship is the best thing about the film, which otherwise feels hopelessly sad and tawdry. Read full review

View more reviews for Starlet on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says not for kids Story about doing the right thing has heavy sex and drugs.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that Starlet is an indie drama about a young woman who, after accidental good fortune, befriends an elderly lady. Despite the character's good intentions and a generally positive message of being rewarded for doing the right thing, the movie is set in and around the porn industry, and there are graphic sex scenes, nudity, and strong innuendo, as well as actual porn stars in the cast. Plus, one secondary character is a drug dealer, and many of the main characters smoke pot at some point. Language is also strong, including "f--k," and there's strong arguing.
  • Families can talk about Starlet's scenes that take place in the adult film industry. What impact do they have on the characters and the rest of the movie? How does the movie depict sex in general?
  • Is Jane a role model? Does she do the right thing? How does that stack up against the fact that she works in the porn industry and smokes pot?
  • Is Jane and Sadie's relationship believable? Have you ever been friends with a person not in your age group?
The good stuff
  • message true2 Positive messages: A character is given a complex moral conundrum; she tries to figure out how to do the right thing and finds herself rewarded in ways she never could have imagined.
  • rolemodels true1 Positive role models: Though the main character is a good soul who tries to do the right thing and befriends and helps an old lady, she also works in the porn industry, lives with a drug dealer, and smokes pot. She's complex and can't easily be called a role model.
What to watch for
  • violence false1 Violence: Characters have intense arguments, and, in one scene, a character gets upset and starts knocking objects over, but no one comes to blows.
  • sex false5 Sexy stuff: The main character and some of the secondary characters work in the porn industry. Viewers see a graphic scene of filming, with sex and nudity, both male and female. There are also several scenes of strong innuendo and many other references to the sex business. Two actual porn stars, Asa Akira and Manuel Ferrara, appear in the movie.
  • language false4 Language: Strong language includes many uses of "f--k," "s--t," and other explicit words.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false4 Drinking, drugs and smoking: One of the secondary characters is a drug dealer. Several characters -- in their 20s -- smoke pot during the course of the movie.
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