It takes ten minutes for Stars Versus Me to introduce its protagonist, Elena (Maris Racal). It instead starts by sketching out the life of her mother (Matet De Leon), who made every decision in her life based on her horoscope. Following the death of her mother, Elena decides to defy the stars by always doing the opposite of what her horoscope advises. This proves to be a problem when her horoscope starts pushing her towards Sonny (Manolo Pedrosa), a kind young man with whom she's enamored. Elena can't decide between sticking to her principles and following her heart.
Superstition is a big part of Filipino culture, and it's not a bad idea to tell a story that explores the way some people approach fate and fortune. But while Stars Versus Me sets up kind of a funny conflict, the storytelling is so poor that it all feels weak and shallow. Shoddy production combines with a badly structured script to deliver a decidedly subpar experience.
Those first ten minutes are indicative of what goes wrong in this film. It delays the introduction of the main character, relegating her to a narrator's voiceover as the movie goes into an extended, mostly useless prologue. And in these ten minutes, the story jumps around with no sense of rhythm or flow. And one can already spot the weaknesses in the production. The very first sequence that features two characters talking has shots that are out of focus and editing that breaks one of the most basic rules of filmmaking.
These problems carry on to the rest of the movie, which just makes a bunch of odd choices. There is an excess of voiceover that tells the audience things that could have just been shown. A lot of the sequences are poorly constructed. There is the scene, for example, where Elena first declares her intention to go against her horoscope. The horoscope tells her to stay in the house, and one would naturally expect this to be followed by a scene of her going outside. Instead, the next is her blow drying her hair indoors. It doesn't follow this up with anything, the movie underselling the concept right from the start.
And as it turns out, the film isn't content with just exploring the comedy of the situation. The story awkwardly reaches into the realm of tragedy, introducing bits that touch on domestic abuse and terminal illness. The movie, with its strange animated interludes, tepid romance, and bits of lame comedy, is unable to develop the depth of emotion needed to make these ideas work. The film's young stars seem eager enough, but they aren't equipped to make those plotlines work either.
Stars Versus Me probably means well, but the storytelling just isn't there. The movie features no fewer than three musical montages, these sequences taking the place of meaningful dialogue and developing chemistry between the primary couple. There are worthy ideas in here, but the movie is unable to realize them. It is just as silly and as weirdly constructed as any of those terrible mainstream Wattpad adaptations, but it compounds the problems with poor production values.
My Rating:
