her husband. Pam resists the need for “strangers in
the house” to provide aid: “Daddy and I have been
in the house forever; I don’t want anybody to mess
with it.” With clarity in an honest moment, she
admits to her doctor that “the problem is my . . .
pride.” Her husband, Ed White, provides everyday care for Pam as much as possible: “I like to be
with her. I don’t mind doing it.” As her condition
worsens, he admits to feeling “caged” and needing
outside help. He absolves Pam from blame in his
struggle to target his feelings of frustration: “It’s
nothing she did, darnit!” He expresses his anger
in more explicit terms at another point in the film
when Pam refuses to get into a boat.
The film is somewhat unique among others in
this genre. The White family is relatively affluent.
Resources seem readily available, if needed. One
is reminded that Alzheimer’s visits kings and paupers. The struggles and grieving depicted in the film
are contrasted with fun and funny moments that
Pam shares with her friends and family. In a living
room songfest, one of her friends pretends Pam is
a bass fiddle and strums her invisible strings while
Pam sings along with the group. Marian Williams
Steel’s coastal water color scenes brighten the film.
Her portraits of Pam as a child and young woman
reflect her deep artistic talent and maternal devotion. In addition, Banker White uses home videos
throughout to convey the context of family life in
earlier, more joyous times. One sees what has been
lost to the disease.
In its essence, The Genius of Marian documents
the spirit of the White family and, in particular,
Pam White herself. At the conclusion of the video,
Pam White introduces herself to the camera. Her
words reflect her character and courage:
“Hello. I am Pam White. I am a mother of three
children. I will tell you a little bit about me. I grew
up in a hotel. My father owned a hotel. It was a
lovely way to grow up. I was an actress and did
modeling. I live for my family and my children.
And One Little Glitch is that I have developed
Alzheimer’s. And initially I was quite distressed
and upset about it but it doesn’t really matter. It
doesn’t really change anything. And I don’t feel sad
and I don’t feel regret. I feel blessed that I have this
wonderful family and a husband who is extraordinarily wonderful. I just feel like the way my mother
did before she was dying. It is just the way it was
. . . and remembering, keeping, cherishing all the
times I had with friends and family. So it’s all good.
No regrets.”
In what must have been a difficult directorial
and personal act, Banker White ends the film with
a still picture of his mother that blurs slowly and
fades ultimately to white.
References
Kleinman, A. (1989). The illness narratives: Suffering, healing, and the
human condition. New York: Basic Books.
Rick J. Scheidt, PhD
School of Family Studies and Human Services
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66502
E-mail: [email protected]
doi:10.1093/geront/gnt120
Advance Access publication October 8, 2013
An Unlikely Friendship
Film: Starlet (103 min)
Music Box Films, Distributor
Produced by Blake Ashman, Sean Baker, Kevin
Chinoy, Patrick Cunningham, Chris Maybach,
Francesca Silvestri
Released: 2012 (USA)
Starlet is a rich and insightful film that traces
the development of an unlikely friendship between
two women separated by 64 years of life. Jane
(Dree Hemingway), a 21 year old who is adrift and
Vol. 53, No. 6, 2013
newly finding her way in Los Angeles, first meets
Sadie (Besedka Johnson), an 85 year old crustytempered widow, at Sadie’s yard sale where Jane
buys an old but decorative thermos to use as a
flower vase. When Jane gets home and cleans out
the thermos, she discovers $10,000 in rolled up
$100 bills inside. This event starts us down a long
and rocky road of ethical questions mixed with
a gradually developing relationship between the
two women.
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Jane’s first decision, after absorbing the shock of
this windfall discovery, is to call her mother back
in Florida with an offer to provide a plane ticket
to come and visit her in Los Angeles. Her mother
declines, and in this very brief scene, we see from
Jane’s demeanor that she is disappointed but also
used to and steeled against such dismissal. We
next see her on a shopping spree, buying, among
other things, a gem studded leash halter for her
male Chihuahua, named Starlet. (Starlet is a constant presence in the film, and Jane’s care and love
for him is one of the marks of her maturity and is
also indicative, it turns out, of the lack of a trusting relationship with another person in her life.)
Her next response to finding the windfall cash is to
question whether she should return the rest of the
money. She goes back to Sadie’s house, but before
she can explain, Sadie brusquely dismisses her with
“I said, no returns, so what are you doing here?
Goodbye!” and closes the door. But Jane is persistent and finds a way to encounter Sadie again, as if
by chance, at the grocery store. Instead of broaching the issue of the money in the thermos, however, she offers her a ride home and then insists on
helping her bring the groceries in the house. Sadie
is wary and impatient when this intruding young
woman lingers and attempts some conversation,
but she remains marginally polite as Jane continues her somewhat awkward bid at getting to know
Sadie more during this visit to her house.
Jane continues to find ways to meet Sadie,
including coming to a bingo game that Sadie goes
to on a weekly basis. When Jane gives Sadie a ride
home from the bingo game and casually asks if
Sadie often wins at bingo, Sadie’s mistrust of Jane’s
motives explodes into action. She maces Jane and
blows a whistle for help. Police arrive and question
Jane and Sadie separately. In the next scene, Jane is
shopping for a new car. Apparently, she is through
with trying to befriend Sadie and finished with
her guilt over keeping the $10,000. But before she
makes the transaction for the car, she gets a call
from Sadie (she had earlier left her number with
Sadie inviting her to call her anytime she needed
a ride to the grocery store). Sadie apologizes, saying “the police told me that you were not up to
shenanigans but were just trying to be a Good
Samaritan. I appreciate Good Samaritan behavior.” Jane does not buy the car, and the rest of the
film shows the relationship between Jane and Sadie
moving, in fits and starts, toward trust. (We also
learn, along with Jane, that Sadie’s husband was
a very successful gambler, who died several years
ago, leaving Sadie with “more money than I can
ever spend in my lifetime.”)
It takes some reflection, after the film is over,
to ascertain just why Jane is drawn to Sadie. Jane
lives with a friend, Melissa (Stella Maeve), and
Melissa’s boyfriend, Mikey (James Ransone).
Melissa lives in a drug-induced haze most of the
time and is easily thrown into emotional volatility. Her boyfriend is a huckster who devotes his
energies, when he is not on the couch playing
video games, to making it in the adult film business. Jane tries to be a good friend to Melissa, but
she is also clearly different and more emotionally
stable than Melissa. When Melissa has a meltdown over not being paid for her spotty work
for an adult film company, Jane tries to intervene
on her behalf. This is the first indication we get
that Jane may herself be working in the adult film
industry, something she never divulges to Sadie.
In a subsequent scene, this fact is born out. We
see Jane, through a behind the scenes look, performing during the shooting of an adult film. (The
scene is very brief and is handled with restraint
through partially blocked camera angles, but it
also brings the viewer up and close to the nonchalant production of such films.)
If you use this film for a classroom discussion,
you will obviously want to watch it first and then
give your students a heads up about the f-wordlaced language in parts of the film and about the
scene described previously. It may not be a big deal
for most of today’s generation of younger students,
but it is better to at least let them know what they
will be encountering so that it will not get in the
way of seeing the deeper meanings imbedded in
this film.
Jane’s relationship with Melissa comes to a climactic end after Melissa discovers the cash that
Jane found. Jane had previously asked Melissa
what, hypothetically, she would do if she found a
large sum of money and “you’re pretty sure that
the person who’s it was doesn’t even know they
had it.” Now Melissa knows that it is Jane who
has actually found that “hypothetical” money,
and she begins to assume that she will benefit
from it as Jane’s friend. When she learns, instead,
that Jane has decided to take a trip to Paris with
Sadie, she flies into a rage and the two have a fight
that ends only when Mikey intervenes. In retaliation for this perceived betrayal of friendship,
Melissa goes to Sadie’s house and tells her that
Jane has some of her money and is befriending
her only out of guilt.
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The Gerontologist
Sadie, who has just begun to trust Jane and
make her a part of her life, now has a new decision
to make. We see her begin to unpack the suitcase
she had packed for Paris. But then she slowly stops
unpacking, her face registering just a faint glimmer of resolve. The final scenes of the film show
Jane, Sadie, and Starlet in the car on the way to
the airport. Sadie asks if they can stop at the cemetery on the way so she can freshen the flowers on
her husband’s grave. When they get there, she asks
Jane if she will bring the flowers to the gravesite.
There Jane learns something from Sadie’s past that
will leave the viewer pondering how, as the closing credits play, it will affect their friendship going
forward.
Starlet is an exceptionally well crafted film, from
the realistic scripting and dialogue to the acting to
the composition and editing of shot after beautiful
shot that seamlessly propel the many faceted story
forward. The film also stays wonderfully clear of
sentimentality on a subject that could easily be sentimentalized (feeling sorry for an old widow). The
characters are presented in a multidimensional way
rather than with the two-tonality so often found
in mainstream feature films. Sadie has a strength
of character that refutes the stereotype of a lonely
and dependent older woman. Jane is caring and
mature in a way that refutes the stereotype of
someone involved in the adult film industry. (This
was the first leading role for Dree Hemingway, and
the first ever for Besedka Johnson, who had never
acted in a film before, yet they play off one another
beautifully in this film.) The film is rare in how
well it presents the development of an intergenerational friendship between these two characters.
And because it sets this friendship in the context of
the lives of contemporary young adults, students
will be able to relate to the story without having
Vol. 53, No. 6, 2013
to reach back through the space of years that the
older classic films about aging necessitate. The
film is likely to generate much discussion around
a wide range of issues related to aging, isolation,
friendship, and stereotyping.
An interesting exercise for a class might be to
compare and contrast Starlet with a much older
but ground breaking film in its time, A Woman’s
Tale (1991, directed by Paul Cox; Cox, Marshall,
Naidu, & Cox, 1991). (For a good description of
this film, which portrays the deep friendship of a
young nurse with one of her patients, a feisty life
loving woman in her late seventies, see the review
in the April 1995 issue of The Gerontologist
[Gregorio 1995]). The two films are similar in
their reflections on the deep meaning of friendship between a younger and an older woman.
The dynamics of the two films, however, are completely different. Starlet has a kind of raw energy
often characteristic of a younger director, but this
energy is nicely tempered by the cautiousness and
indecision of both main characters as they move
toward a deeper friendship.
In any case, do watch Starlet and consider it for
a class discussion. Some of the best films can come
out of the risk taking Indie (independently produced) film world. This is certainly true for Starlet!
References
Cox, P., Marshall, W., Naidu, S. (Producers), & Cox, P. (Director). (1991).
A woman’s tale [Motion picture]. Australia: Orion Classics.
Gregorio, J. T. (1995). Audiovisual reviews. The Gerontologist, 35, 287.
Jim Vanden Bosch, MA
Terra Nova Films
Chicago, IL 60643
E-mail: [email protected]
doi:10.1093/geront/gnt119
Advance Access publication October 14, 2013
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