Pittsburgh Press - 27 May 1983
Many of Starstruck's initial reviews were very positive - though a few were admittedly less so. Here is a sampling from Australia and America.
Canberra Times - 12 May 1982
Having Great Fun Avoiding Hazards
Dougal MacDonald
A ROCK musical set mainly in a pub in Sydney's Rocks area might not seem all that much of a good idea, yet Gillian Armstrong's film makes the most of the genre at the same time as being great fun.
Scriptwriter Stephen MacLean has re-invented the simple plot about a girl prepared to do anything to be noticed on her climb to singing stardom, then embellished it with enough serious ideas to keep it from wasting its time. MacLean says he had the teeny-bopper audience in mind, from 9 to 18. It's a measure of the film's quality that an old fogey like me found it agreeably entertaining.
It's very easy to make a bad film around rock mu sic, based on the notion of a great talent frustrated by absence of recognition yet winning through against all opposition to reach the final reel in a burst of success and acclamation. The idea is simplistic, excessively cutesy and burdened by more than half a century of over-exposure. 'Starstruck' en counters all these hazards and disposes of them. How it does so is worth examining.
Both writer and director have let the Him find its own pace. Never forcing it, they accept its occasional stumbles and get it moving again, the dramatic action and the musical numbers taking separate paths and crossing in a manner at once logical and relaxed.
One should resist the temptation to compare this with the counterpart elements in 'Fame', since the two films have quite different purposes. Instead, one can admire for its own sake the energy that pervades 'Starstruck' and take pleasure from both the production values of its musical numbers and the cultural accuracy of its dramatic content.
There is a bigness about the musical production and a nice satirical quality to most of the staging of the songs.
Jackie (Jo Kennedy) goes on a TV talent-quest program for the obligatory "I blew it" number and to the Opera House for the big finale against a backdrop of the Bridge in flashing lights.
The love-song is small, tightly controlled, and full of the pathos of Jackie's shock at finding out that her femaleness cuts no ice with Terry, the TV compere (John O'May) who wants her only for her voice, his sexual preferences being of his own gender.
Linking the songs is a story of life at the Harbour View, a pub for the work ing man and woman, a neighbourhood escape from boredom, a surrogate family, a place where the counter-lunches are some thing that, in one drinker's words, you wouldn't serve to a Jap on Anzac Day (the film was finished before the brown dog became in famous).
The pub is a reference point with reality, from which Jackie and her younger cousin Angus (Ross O'Donovan) launch their campaign to take the entertainment world by storm. To win, they must defeat the entrenched forces of family and public fickleness. The battle is a lot of fun for the film-goer.
That the material from which the film is fashioned is slight does not detract from its effectiveness. The talent of the young per formers is manifest and major, especially Jo Ken nedy. The music is adequate of its kind and once or twice excellent. And there are enough meaty ideas to be found in the script to lift the film above the epithet of mindless.
The Age (Melbourne) - 12 April 1982
‘Starstruck’ is Armstrong’s brilliant satire
Neil Jillett
Gillian Armstrong’s Starstruck (Midcity) is a brilliant bombshell of a film, perhaps the first satire thrown up by the Australian cinema’s New Wave.
But will the public accept it for what it is, or even see what it is?
Armstrong’s first feature, ‘My Brilliant Career’ (1979), was little more than nostalgia clumsily dressed in feminist drag; yet it won extravagant praise. Its successor, a much better film in nearly every way, seems to be in danger of being misinterpreted or dismissed out of hand. If this is to be its fate, the promotional campaign and Armstrong’s own comments will be partly to blame.
In a campaign that might have been designed to scare off anyone older than 25, the publicity for 'Starstruck' announces the arrival of "the first Aussie modern musical comedy" and spouts other waffle about the pop/rock scene. And Armstrong is quoted as saying that she signed up as a director because "I wanted to work with Australian pop music at a time when it's beginning to get the international recognition it deserves."
That explanation sounds sanctimonious. It certainly underestimates Armstrong's achievement with 'Starstruck'. It encourages a general impression that the film is a spin-off from the TV show 'Countdown', garbage for the adolescent drive-in trade. 'Starstruck' does owe a debt to 'Countdown,' but an unusual and complex one.
'Countdown' is a fascinating programme, if only because it shows the ABC's persistence in using taxpayers' money to promote and subsidise local and overseas record companies and other branches of commercial showbiz in their campaign to extract millions of dollars from teenyboppers by selling them a largely worthless product.
In the pop/rock industry the packaging is usually the product. Promotion is more important than talent. It is 'Starstruck's witty awareness of this point that makes it such a fine film.
The plot, economically laid down by Stephen Maclean's screenplay, looks at what happens when a group of youngsters turn the manipulative tables on the exploiters. The kids are not particularly talented - their music is as imitatively bland as anyone else's - but they use their own promotion tactics to fool the media and to subvert a competition being run by a TV talent show.
The leaders of this children's crusade are Jackie, an 18-year-old singing barmaid, and Angus, her 14-year-old cousin and manager. On their devious way to the top we are subjected to much rocking and popping, dancing and singing, mainly through the efforts of music director Mark Moffatt and a New Zealand group, The Swingers. The result does not sound any different to the average contribution to 'Countdown', but the visual style is far more exciting, and the performances have a sense of real rather than contrived enjoyment.
Jackie and Angus live in their family's pub. near the Southern pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and this setting is exploited by the film - visually and as a plot device.
The pub is almost broke and may be closed by the brewery, and the attempt to keep it open is shown in entertainingly corny tandem with the kids' efforts to hit the pop big time. The pub's customers are mainly people of the age of the 'Countdown' generation's parents, and while the kids are out laying siege to the TV show and storming the top 10s barricades, the adults are behaving in a no less grotesque way back at the pub, having boozy fun when they are not crying into their beer.
The generations sneer at each other until they are united by the realisation that they have a common enemy. The System (represented by the TV show and the brewery), which can be beaten by a united front. The adults and the kids are not going to abandon their drugs (beer and music), but they have learned to become masters of their own dosage.
The film moves with tremendous energy through Brian Thomson's attractively garish sets, which are recorded with sympathetic boldness by Russell Boyd's busy, wide-angled camerawork.
Armstrong lets the pace drag only twice, in love scenes between Jackie (Jo Kennedy, who has the right bounce in the rest of the film) and her true love, Robbie (Ned Lander, with the fixedly prognathic expression familiar from 'The Restless Years'). As Angus, the ferrety cousin, Ross O'Donovan is sometimes uncertain, though at his best he has an amused and amusing swagger.
There are some top line performances in the smaller, older roles. New Zealander Pat Evison is a superb caricature of a fat, smelly but still loveable old Nana; and Dennis Miller as Angus's Dad, dashingly garbed in signet and see-through shirt, is very funny having quick fumbles with Margo Lee as Jo's agreeably surprised Mum.
In the musical scenes the sound is at a merciful level, though lips and words sometimes seem out of synch. In the general rhubarb that too often accompanies the dialogue some good lines may have been lost, but one survived and will stay with me for a long time. "Geez," says a pub customer looking at his counter lunch, "you wouldn't give that to a Jap on Anzac Day!"
Whatever the quality of the talk and music, 'Starstruck' is always a good-looking film, thanks several times to the choreography of David Atkins. His best effort is an Esther Williams parody in which the homosexual compere Terry (a neatly defined cameo by John O'May) cavorts in a rooftop pool with a balletic corps of male surf lifesavers. In this dig at images of Australian masculinity the satire, as in the rest of the film, is sharp without being cruel.
The lifesaver scene is also typical of what I would hope is this film's broad appeal. As a spectacle, it can be enjoyed by all ages. It gives all of us - but perhaps most obviously those around the 18 and 40 year marks - a chance to laugh at ourselves and each other. And on a more serious level 'Starstruck', in its entrancing and comically romantic depiction of Australian youth and middle-age, is a rather alarming record of the values which this country holds most dear.
New York Times - 10 November 1982
“Starstruck” Down Under ...
by Janet Maslin
LIKE Gillian Armstrong's first film, ''My Brilliant Career,'' her second has a red-haired heroine with decidedly headstrong ways. That's where the resemblance ends, however, since ''My Brilliant Career'' was set in turn-of-the-century rural Australia, and the new film takes place among the punk-rock vanguard of modern Sydney.
''Starstruck'' is the story of Jackie (Jo Kennedy), who will stop at nothing to get herself on television, and who during the course of the story dresses up as, among other things, a long-playing record, a topless tightrope walker and a red kangaroo. Is this the sort of thing that would make a movie lovable? I think it is, but there will be those who don't. They are advised to avoid the Sutton theater, where ''Starstruck'' opens today in all its dizzy, impudent, highspirited glory. On the other hand, anyone who finds this intriguing probably ought to hurry over.
''Starstruck'' doesn't have much of a plot; it tries to get by mostly on charm, and its charm is of a singular and limited sort. First and foremost, this movie is a costumer's dream. Jackie never fails to be dressed in something appealingly ridiculous, and her mother is apt to appear in ruffly pastels of mid-60's vintage, with little bunches of fake fruit at her neck and ears. The wit of Luciana Arrighi and Terry Ryan's costumes is rivaled by the set decoration of Brian Thomson, who also did the sets for ''The Rocky Horror Show.'' It is Mr. Thomson, presumably, who was responsible for giving Jackie an inflatable sandbox in her beach-wallpapered bedroom (she sleeps on a Mondrian print raft in the middle), or for giving her little cousin Angus (Ross O'Donovan) Elvis Presley bedsheets.
The pub where Jackie sometimes works as a barmaid is another bit of masterful decor, and it is full of older-generation types liable to break out into spontaneous singing and dancing as Jackie trots across the countertops. ''Starstruck'' is silly through and through, but it's also full of happy, musical surprises. You may never again see a swimming pool sequence featuring chorus boys flanked by a line of inflatable plastic sharks. On the other hand, you may never want to see such a thing even once, and that's something that can easily be determined ahead of time.
On the rare moments when the story makes itself obtrusive, it does seem old-hat. Jackie is just another sweet kid who wants to break into show business. There's a nice boy who cares for her and another, more jaded fellow who catches her eye. And Jackie hopes to enter a television talent contest just as her mother's business is about to be foreclosed. Will she win? ''Starstruck'' is too cheerful a movie to spring any unhappy surprises, and in any case Jackie's indomitable optimism is established from the very start. Even with a woebegone cockatoo on her shoulder - the costumes are always unusual, as pointed out previously - she retains her assurance and her cool. Incidentally, the bird-on-the-shoulder look proves so successful that it is eventually adopted by Jackie's entire band.
''Do you like the Beatles?'' an older character asks Jackie. She replies, with a superior sniff, ''They broke up when I was two.'' The movie shares a little of Jackie's overconfidence; even at times when she might have tried harder to win a wider audience, Miss Armstrong is content to adopt a take-it-or-leave-it stance. That, and the relative ordinariness of the music, and the fact that it all lasts a bit longer than it needs to, are perhaps the film's biggest drawbacks.
But ''Starstruck'' is an original, and an energetic and funny one at that. It reveals a new side of Australia to anyone whose principal film memories are of the Outback. And now that ''My Brilliant Career'' has established Miss Armstrong's talent, this one demonstrates her versatility in no uncertain terms. She may be an original, too.
The Pittsburgh Press - 27 May 1983
'Starstruck' Shines Brightly at Times
By JIM DAVIDSON
Jackie is a rambunctious 17-year-old determined to become a singing star. Angus, her cousin, is a twerp of 14 who fancies himself as her promoter and manager. He promises to make a star so bright she'll set Sydney, Australia on its ear.
Such is the gossamer storyline of "Starstruck," a refreshing Australian musical comedy that opens today at the Kings Court.
Peculiar movie. Not unlike the Scottish import "Local Hero," it has an understated sense of humour that dares a moviegoer to love it or hate it. "Starstruck" is either dopey or charming, take your pick.
Betcha the marketing executives didn't know what to make of it all. And it remains to be seen whether the rock music audience will buy its sweetness, upbeat fantasy and jaunty rock 'n roll.
The style owes something to "Fame." One moment "Starstruck" shows ordinary pub patrons quaffing their ordinary beers and minding their ordinary business. Suddenly music blows up from somewhere, and the old ladies and gents turn into a conga line. Or suddenly Jackie is practicing her high-wire act on a rope strung above the bar.
"I want a band, I want amplifiers, I want I want I want," says Jackie (Jo Kennedy) at the start of the movie, just as she notices a kangaroo suit in a store window. She wants that, too, and winds up wearing it to amateur night at the Lizard Lounge. In that get up, she looks smashing on her cousin Angus's (Ross O'Donovan's) motor scooter.
This is the younger generation, replete with post-punk costumes and music. Wise-guy Angus, proud of his generation, brags that he was 2 years old when the Beatles broke up.
Jackie's innocent dream is an old movie dream, and her fate is an old movie fate. Thanks to some crafty wrangling by Angus, Jackie meets writer/TV host Terry Lambert (John O'May) and her career starts rolling. The grand finale talent show is staged in Australia's most famous building, the Sydney Opera House.
"Starstruck" is all surface. Director Gillian Armstrong, coming back from a four-year hiatus after "My Brilliant Career," settles for a winsome tone and doesn't try and explain her characters' psychology or account for their zany stunts. Spectacle is enough, especially when Jackie is on her high wire.
The production designer is Brian Thompson, credited in the small print with the set design for "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." The new movie uses confectionery colours, garish costumes, impossible hairstyles and lots of offhand weirdness like the Elvis Presley sheets on Angus's bed.
Most of it is tasteful and inoffensive, although poolside spoofs of Busby Berkeley and Esther Williams are certainly old hat by now.
The dense accumulation of details - some of them perhaps hard to spot until a second or third viewing - suggest "Starstruck" could wind up as a cult movie on the midnight circuit.
Miss Kennedy is irresistible in the finale, "It's the Monkey in Me," bounding gawkily about the stage and singing with a studio echo to her voice.
"New wave" is the rage they're sticking on the music, but to these ears it's like the Tommy James and the Shondells hits of the late '60s.
Most numbers are on the saccharine side, and many look as if they were engineered especially for the MTV network on cable television. The segments are brief, colourful, full of quick and jarring cuts, and basically empty - just like the videos on MTV.
Jackie defines star quality as "that little something extra." She has it, and so does the movie.
Read more at Starstruck: The Complete Companion to the 1982 Film
