Stardust is, as director Gabriel Range has proudly stated, an ”unauthorized biopic” of British rock legend David Bowie (Johnny Flynn), that follows him on the 1971 tour that would lead to the creation of his Ziggy Stardust persona. The film is largely fictional and makes no pretense otherwise, going so far as to announce its disinterest with reality before it even begins. This puts the filmmakers in an interesting position considering the pre-release criticism concerned over an assumed disrespect for Bowie’s legacy. Having actually seen it, Stardust feels far less preoccupied with Bowie’s legacy, or even his character, and more so interested in his position as an icon, and how it’s even possible to balance that with a coherent idea of oneself. Range uses this space to tackle some interesting questions about fame and art as a process of self discovery that creates something far more interesting than whatever a Bowie estate approved Stardust would look like.
The bulk of Stardust takes the shape of a road trip movie, following Bowie and Mercury Records’ publicist Ron Oberman (Marc Maron) as they embark on a tour of the United States where, due to his label neglecting to apply for a work visa, David Bowie legally can’t play music. This early roadblock to his expression begins to immediately suggest to the audience that this will not be an exploration of the artist at the peak of his power, but a much more internal investigation of the purposes that creativity actually serves. Through this framing, the fact that Stardust also can’t play David Bowie’s music for legal reasons well out of their control begins to feel almost complementary to these ideas, intentionally or not suggesting the motivation of profit as another barrier to real creativity. The film is at its best when it rides these lines and we get to watch Bowie’s constant performance of apathy and artistry and of being something fundamentally bigger than the people around him butt up against Ron, a man who has very little time for any of it.
Though it is not clear what Bowie is working towards until the end, where Ziggy Stardust is revealed to the world; Stardust is from the ground up, a film about identity, and the challenges of making something tangible out of how we feel inside. The film pits Bowie against a series of interviewers, each one presenting an opportunity to explain himself to the world that he categorically refuses to take, as if afraid to reveal too much of who he thinks he is. The great irony of the film is that this intense shielding of his identity is nowhere to be seen in his music, specifically the Man Who Sold the World album. The spacey and distressed voice of the album becomes the exact truth that he spends the movie struggling to express and this back and forth creates an incredibly exciting and fresh dynamic. The lack of interest in playing and inevitably dramatizing the music that is present in recent films like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman provides Stardust with the opportunity to focus more on why the music was made than whatever form it eventually took, as well as avoiding making any personal interpretation of its message concrete. David Bowie was a complicated person who wore his influences on his sleeve, and I just can’t see how the best way to reflect that is to cycle through his greatest hits devoid of any context.
Beyond its thematic concerns, Stardust is a subtly gorgeous film, creating images that feel just strange enough to exist in David Bowie’s world if not ours. The film opens on a shot-for-shot recreation of the vortex scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey, planting Bowie not in an alien bedroom as in 2001 but in the psychiatric hospital he spends the film being almost haunted by. Its sparse musical performances never center Bowie, instead choosing to plant him firmly in the background of wherever he’s performing. This all creates a sense that Range is far more fascinated with Bowie as an image and a product than a single person. Despite this alienation, Johnny Flynn manages to absolutely shine in the role, carrying himself with a swagger and a reservation that without exception bridges any gap in appearance between the two. Marc Maron, while not playing anything particularly groundbreaking, is incredibly entertaining as the put-upon PR guy. The only real stumble here is the disappointing underuse of Jena Malone as Angie Bowie but there are some real sparks when she and David do get to share the screen, especially once he returns to London and we get to see just how instrumental she was in the construction of his image.
I don’t doubt that when it is finally released to the world, Stardust will be divisive; David Bowie was a challenging person in ways beyond that which it finds time to cover and it is inevitable that a figure as big as him would create a polarizing movie. But it is a well intentioned movie with some interesting ideas not only of David Bowie but art as both a vice and an escape. It wrestles with themes of mental illness and identity in a way that while maybe not perfect, feels constructive. Though it is not hugely interested in presenting David Bowie as a sympathetic character, the concern that this film is simply a cash grab rushed out after his death, though understandable, does not reflect the reality of its approach, or its production at all. While the Bowie estate will likely never give it their blessing, Stardust still manages to feel like an essential part of that history, and I would go as far as to say the kind of movie that David Bowie himself might have even preferred. It’s erratic and weird and before its time, absolutely refusing to be categorized for fear of limiting its potential.
