A unique, intimate portrayal of a girl grieving for the loss of her best friend, which just so happens to take place on the day the world ends.... (Full plot summary below)
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A unique, intimate portrayal of a girl grieving for the loss of her best friend, which just so happens to take place on the day the world ends.
Leave your thoughts about Starfish.
| Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerWhite brings an incredible freshness to the well-trodden postapocalyptic genre. Starfish flips from introspective drama to Lovecraftian creature feature to pastel-tinged animation without ever losing coherence. |
| Film ThreatChuck FosterPain either destroys us or makes us stronger. The trick is knowing how to avoid the traps and use it for inspiration. While he could have stayed stuck in the black void of sorrow, White instead made something beautiful. Honestly, he could not have paid a better tribute to his friend. |
| RogerEbert.comNick AllenThe work of a filmmaker I'm very excited to see and hear more from, “Starfish” is very much its own sci-fi mixtape—curated with hit and miss offerings, but with an undeniable and meaningful sincerity all the same. |
| Los Angeles TimesNoel MurrayIt’s a little like a post-apocalyptic survivalist thriller, crossed with Lynn Ramsay’s impressionistic masterpiece “Morvern Callar,” crossed with a Radiohead video. Not all of those pieces fit together. But they combine into something strikingly original. |
| The New York TimesJason BaileyIf White’s wild formal experimentation and narrative cul-de-sacs result in a strange identity crisis for the film — a sense that he wasn’t entirely sure which movie he wanted to make — Gardner’s stellar work unifies it. |
| LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenAs Starfish becomes a more obvious personal metaphor involving betrayal and forgiveness, it also becomes a bit less interesting—even as it still marks White as an ambitious talent to watch. |
| User ReviewThe_DocIt's a very allegorical film about grief. The sci-fi elements take a back seat as Virginia Gardner does an incredible job at portraying her character's pain and regret in a very intimate fashion. The cinematography is beautiful, as is the score, which is deeply connected to the story. I'd recommend it to anyone that doesn't need a classic narrative to enjoy a film, and who's open to a very personal emotional experience that will stick with you for a while. |
| User ReviewrappM95In the same vein as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Definitely an art house experiment on how to portray sadness and grief. There are a lot of interpretations left to the viewer, and that’s what makes it a great Indie. Worth a view, just to see how weird it is. |
| User ReviewJLuis_001Quasi experimental and pretty interesting, but too much all over the place to be considered something more special than it is. |
| User ReviewcrazyoliThey could have made an entertaining movie but they made an art movie instead! If you like symbolism and pretentious art puzzle movies a la David Lynch, then this is the movie for you! I for one, don't really like these kinda movies. I'm sure the turtle, the wolf costume, the tapes all have a very deep meaning and are connected to the grieving process but I just can't be bothered to untangle all that. I've just seen too many movies with mental conditions bleeding into reality by now. Strangely enough, I've heard that you can even do both - combine a captivating story with powerful images that depict the inner state of the characters! This movie just goes for the latter. So, since it is just a one-woman-show, I guess you're supposed to say it was a powerful performance or something but to me it was just another pretty chick cast as a lead role as usual. What's decent about the movie are the CGI effects, the music and I guess it succeeds in what it wants to do which is transport a certain atmosphere of despair, disenfranchisement, and other typical artsy blah blah. To sum things up, if you're a movie critic you'll probably like the movie, if not you probably can skip the movie. See user vs. |
