Welcome to my 2026 project honoring the first quarter of the 21st century. In this extremely lax project I watch a movie from each year to hopefully give myself some insight with what has changed within cinema during this century. At the very least I’ll have watched 25 interesting films and paired them with a dinner inspired by the movie, the place its from, and maybe a little bit of nostalgia for the past 25 years. You can watch along with me or find out what’s up next by checking out the full list of movies.
Today’s feature is from the year 2012, we are headed to the United States of America to go thrifting…
Movie: Starlet
Year: 2012
Director: Sean Baker
Country: USA
The Elevator Pitch: Newly transplanted Jane accidentally finds discovers money from an old woman’s garage sale that transforms both of their lives.
How Was the Movie?:
I really liked Starlet but you can tell it is an earlier film of Sean Baker’s. This was actually the only film from Sean Baker that I hadn’t yet seen and I suppose it’s his “breakout” hit but it has all the hallmarks of his other movies without some of the tension and restraint that made Red Rocket and The Florida Project especially good. The first 20-30 minutes of this film are like nails on a chalk board, it’s almost too naturalistic in its styling because not only does it do almost nothing to set up the rest of the movie, it also is boring and cringe.
After you get over that part the movie is actually deeply insightful and lovely. I really enjoyed the push and pull relationship between Sadie and Jane and how they both desperately want to be loved and to connect to each other but they’re so unsure of how to do it because they haven’t had any practice in it. There is something very tender and beautiful about trying to connect and not always making it the whole distance. Especially towards the end of the movie as Jane is trying to figure out how to move forward in her personal and professional life there is such lingering, thoughtful tension in it.
However, the downside is that Baker hadn’t yet figured out how to balance this film. In addition to the opening act just being painfully slow, there is a full of porn scene in the middle of the film which is fine because Jane is a sex worker and it does set up the theme of the unreality of her connections on screen versus her real life relationships but it goes on for like a whole 3-4 minutes. Absolutely unforgivably long.
Like all his movies we explore sex, reality, relationships, life stages, and especially poverty. The forms of poverty and what that does to your movement through the world. Jane is a sex worker but the movie, despite the overly long porn scene, isn’t lurid about it which is super impressive. The movie is flowingly organic and it does feel like peeking in a curtain on someones real messy lived in life which personally I loved.
It’s 2012 so there were cell phones everywhere, cam girls as part of the business, and of course playing online video games. I think the only missing piece was more of a focus on social media but I guess for most people that came later, though I do feel like adult entertainment is always on the cutting edge of technology but they go to a trade show and don’t share socials.
Either way this was really good, I got a little teary at the end, and that’s a big thumbs up from me.
What was for Dinner?:
For dinner I wanted something fun and fresh and California so I made this grilled nectarine and bean salad. We also had chips and salsa instead of the usual popcorn to round out the dinner. I still don’t know if I’m a fan of putting fruit in salads (fruit that isn’t tomatoes but you know what I mean). This is a really good salad and because it had beans, chickpeas, avocado, and corn in it this was actually substantial and did not simply make me yearn for more food. Personally I don’t like to make salads because like wraps they have 200 small things in them that you have to prep by themselves but this wasn’t too bad if you’re using already corn, beans, and chickpeas from a tin. I used the leftovers to make chili.
My husband didn’t like the nectarines in the salad at all and probably would have preferred that they simply be replaced by tomatoes but if you’re a fruit in salad person this is probably a winner.
That’s it for 2012, see you in the future year of 2013!