Film
Review:
Five Star Day,
directed by Danny Buday, starring Cam Gigandet, Jena Malone,
Brooklyn Sudano, Max Hartman, from Breaking Glass Pictures, theatrical
release Nov. 2011, DVD release Feb.
2012.
By John
Townley, with Susan Townley
Although
one of AstroCocktail’s specialties is examining how
the modern world views astrology (see our news page),
we don’t generally review astrology-related films –
though there have
been a spate of them in both the East and the West lately –
because the astrology in them is either too peripheral or treated with
a level
of ignorance that truly merits ignoring. But 2011’a Five
Star Day
is refreshingly another matter, and now that it’s coming
out in DVD release, it’s worth a closer look.
The
premise is simple: protagonist Jake Gibson (Cam
Gigandet, Christina Aguilera’s love interest in Burlesque)
reads his newspaper Sun-sign horoscope which tells him
he’s going to have a wonderful birthday – love,
money, career outlooks all
superb – and then proceeds to have the most disastrous day of
his young life on
all three fronts. Confusing destiny and predetermination, and
infuriated that
he has been somehow deceived by the ancient art itself, he sets out to
debunk
astrology utilizing a project for his college ethics class. His method:
to find
several other people born at exactly the same time and place as he
(February 6,
1982, at 10:32 PM in Chicago), who presumably would have had totally
different
birthday experiences than he, thus somehow disproving astrology. Not
exactly an
airtight experiment, but perhaps enough speculative fodder for an
ethics class.
But
his presumptions are soon dashed asunder, for as he
travels cross-country to meet three others whose identical birthdays he
wants
to hear about, he discovers that two also had life-alteringly dreadful
days,
and later finds the third’s was even worse. He
is treated to
it in-depth with his first contact and subsequent love
interest Sarah (Jena Malone, of Pride
and
Prejudice, Sucker Punch,
lots
more), and the rest follow suit. It’s
an
unexpected conundrum. Does this mean astrology is for real? Is there no
free
will in this world? Well, of course there is, as he discovers from
getting
creatively entangled with the troubled lives of all three. With a
little help
from Jake, everyone manages to make lemonade out of their birthday
lemons, with
engagingly suitable episodes of drama, love, and comedy along the way.
Ill
begun may be half-done, but the other half is up to you, as they all
discover, ultimately
earning Jake a good grade (we hope) in his ethics report.
Although
the premise is logically shaky – it mixes Sun-sign
newspaper entertainment with legitimate natal astrology –
that doesn’t really
matter, as director Danny Buday has explained in an excellent interview with
astrologer Chris Brennan. What
does matter is that the story recognizes what legitimate astrology is
and then proceeds
to explore the destiny vs. free will issues that it can engender,
concluding
along with most modern astrologers that it’s just another set
of influences for
the soul to navigate in life. What Jake learns in his travels is that
although
all four characters born at the same place and time may share a
beginning and
even subsequent similarly-timed challenges, they are all separate
souls,
travelling their own sometimes-intersecting paths. They may have
stepped in
through the same door at the same time, and thus be pointed in similar
directions, they themselves are not that door, despite being beholden
to it and
to each other.
What
writer/director Buday has put forth is not dissimilar
to many novels or films about protagonists who feel locked in by their
religion, race, or other birthrights and struggle to escape or
transcend them,
while integrating them as well. The fact is, we all are delineated by
our sets
of initial conditions, but we needn’t be unnecessarily
imprisoned by them, as
once we thoroughly take stock of where we come from and where we are,
where we
go and who we become is significantly up to us, both individually and
jointly.
The
lesson of this enjoyably entertaining film is simple: as
hero Jake begins to get beyond feeling sorry for himself (and angry at
astrology) and becomes more selflessly involved with his birthmates, he
discovers that although they are all of a piece to begin with, what
that piece
turns out to be in the end is determined by what they are willing to do
with
it, and with each other. Your horoscope gives you a particular view of
where
you began, and its potential, and from that point on the ball is in
your court.
What may
happen is predetermined by
all sorts of initial conditions, but what does
happen is what your destiny is all about…
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