Hollywood Stargirl – Movie Review
105 Minutes, Rated PG
Written by Julia Hart and and Jordan Horowitz
Directed by Julia Hart
Synopsis:
Disney’s Hollywood Stargirl is a sequel to the 2020 Disney+ film about free spirit Stargirl Caraway, a silver-voiced teenager whose simple acts of kindness work magic in the lives of others. The upcoming film follows Stargirl’s journey out of Mica, Arizona and into a bigger world of music, dreams and possibilities.
When her mother Ana is hired as the costume designer on a movie, they relocate to L.A., where Stargirl quickly becomes involved with an eclectic assortment of characters.
They include aspiring filmmaking brothers Evan and Terrell; Mr. Mitchell, one of Stargirl’s neighbors; and Roxanne Martel, a musician Stargirl admires and encounters on her journey.
In 2020, the movie Stargirl came out of nowhere on Disney+. Based on the 2020 Young-Adult novel by Jerri Spinelli, it was a cute little fairy-tale kind of story where a young doofus is rescued from his own inadequacies by a girl unlike anyone he’d ever seen before: Stargirl Caraway.
Truthfully, as I wasn’t the films target demographic, I skipped it when it came out. But when it came time to screen the sequel, Hollywood Stargirl, I figured I should acquaint myself, and so I did.
The original film is surprisingly tight, with a streamlined script which maximized the impact of Stargirl’s… eccentricities… while maintaining a naive sense of wonder at how simple things could be, if we simply stopped to look.
At the end, the protagonist waxes poetic about the mythic status Stargirl attained and how he sometimes wondered if she had ever been real at all.
It was, in terms of itself, a perfect ending.
Unsurprisingly, then (in Hollywood terms), we get a sequel two years later.
But, as I have already said, the original was effectively perfect, a self-contained fairy-tale of teenage years and maturation of self.
Wonderful.
So the sequel in this context simply should not exist, nor does it need to.
But…
…since it does exist, how is it?
It’s fine, really. Grace VanderWaal continues to show growth as an actor, and the rest of the cast is fine as a support system for Stargirl’s social development. Sure is convenient that she doesn’t have to deal with school issues this time, though.
As a thoughtful look at the relationship between a girl and her mother, it’s moving, with Judy Greer as the loving yet beleaguered mom to perpetual dreamer and optimist Stargirl, and it also, subtly, provides an interesting look behind the scenes at indie filmmaking at its most basic level.
Again, as in the original, everything works out almost too perfectly here, and whereas the original film justifies this through its retrospective format/conceit to allow such perfection, here it seems just a little too pat, too easy, too…
Perfect.
A little actual struggle might have been nice, at any step of the way, but that doesn’t fit the format.
In the end, it’s a sweet little diversion, suitable for families, especially for mothers and daughters who might otherwise be disinclined to agree on something to watch on movie night.
Hollywood Stargirl is currently streaming on Disney+ and stars Grace VanderWaal, Elijah Richardson, Judy Greer, Uma Thurman, Judd Hirsch, Tyrel Jackson Williams, Nija Okoro, Chris Williams, and Al Madrigal.
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