To the Stars is a tender, heartbreaking coming-of-age story: Review
last year, falls into the latter camp. Nothing could be more suffocating than the wide-open space of Wakita, Okla. in the ‘60s, where Iris , a teenage outcast with a humble background and an embarrassing anxious tendency, suffers daily humiliation at the hands of cruel mean girls and menacing football players. Her world changes, however, with the arrival of new girl Maggie , who is as outgoing and impulsive as Iris is withdrawn and cautious.
Maybe they connect because, vibrant though she is, Maggie is set apart too; there’s a mysterious reason her affluent family left the city for Wakita, and while she alludes to her own demons, she holds her secret tight. Stephens, working from a screenplay by Shannon Bradley-Colleary, employs admirable restraint in revealing the truth of Maggie’s history, and takes her time, too, to peel back the layers on Iris’ pain and the complex dynamics of her family life.
That understated approach is echoed visually in Andrew Reed’s spare, perceptive cinematography, which captures Wakita and its inhabitants in a washed-out palette as if all the brightness had been drained out of the place . Especially in a film about teenagers, whose avalanche of feelings can never be painted in colors vivid enough, the slow tempo and faded worldview feels especially oppressive — though Heather McIntosh’s twinkly score offers a welcome glimmer of hope.
Hayward brings a wonderful, aching intensity to Iris, who visibly and authentically transforms upon this first attempt, by anybody, to understand her. Liberato’s Maggie balances her well, sparkling amid the blankness of their surroundings with a worldly recklessness as appealing to watch as it is for Iris to experience. The well-cast quartet of their parents —
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