Star (1993)

Great Film overall

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

I am jaded in terms of love, and yet I discovered this and fell back in love. Society seems to make us all believe that at age 16 you cannot fall in love for the rest of your lifetime. It's now considered pedophilia. And as that 16 y/o I can say I knew what I wanted. And so I accepted the love story.I can only say that I loved this movie. Probably from personal experience. But I loved Terry Farrell in this. Maybe the cast acting wasn't the best, but I look past that for the story. And I cried several times.I think Danielle Steele is an okay authoress. I don't read much of her books. But NBC seems to have a knack of making her books into meaningful movies. I wouldn't give this a ten. But I give it a nine. When something makes me cry, it's at least an eight. I just loved the storyline. Yes it's soapy but I connected with it. I recommend it, if you can deal with those movies of the week that was so popular in the 80s and 90s.

^^contains spoilers^^This movie is utter crap. Do not watch.There is no one in this movie to root for, or even like, except for the wife, and she wins by default. Everyone is selfish, and many things happen that make no sense.The acting is mediocre at best and everyone breathes too heavily about everything. No one can even cry believably.If you leave the room for even a second, then something totally out of left field will happen, and it will make NO SENSE WHATSOEVER.For example, I left the room for a second, while Jennie Garth's character was sleeping with her manager. I come back, seriously about 4 minutes later, (also I'm pretty sure there was a commercial somewhere in there) and she's sleeping with that Berko guy. I gave up on this movie around the time that Berko was being an ass to his fiancé in the car, because she didn't want to call off the wedding.I wasted 2 hours of my life. You shouldn't.

SPOILERS THROUGH:I'm not a major Danielle Steel fan but have seen maybe three or four of her movies. This was not my favorite. I did not read the book before hand but it wasn't hard to figure out relatively quickly, where this one was going. The movie itself was not that long and that was the biggest problem. This didn't feel like a movie, more a series of events. There was absolutely no story development whatsoever.This story, taking place over so many years, really needed to be at least another hour maybe more. It just didn't work here. There was a "This happens, then this happens" quality. Nothing was developed, to the point where I really wondered what I was still doing watching this when there really was almost no story there.What WAS there was a vivid and throughly captivating performance from Jennie Garth as the main character Chrystal. She elevated the movie but it seemed so little effort was put into making this absorbing or giving it any sense of realism whatsoever, that it was quite disappointing and whatever one thinks of Danielle Steel, the other movies I've seen of her work did NOT have that element.Craig Berko seemed miscast but that may not be him, the character development was weak too. The character of Elizabeth, the wife, was developed pretty well though.I liked the scene where Chrytal goes into the bar when she firsts get to San Francisco looking for work but then it seems like overnight she is a major success which was rather difficult to believe. And I REALLY didn't buy that chance meeting between Garth and Berko. But the whole movie is pretty much like this.I have a feeling the book is much better but the movie itself is probably no more then a 5. Five is ultimately my vote and one thing I will say is having Garth in the lead role was a big positive. This actually would have been better as a miniseries or even a television series. Decent but skippable and 5 out of 10.

It's schmaltzy, but then what else did you expect? The heroine is Cinderella's younger sister complete with wicked mother, sister, and brother-in-law; the hero (if you can call him that) is an ineffectual putz; and the rival love interests are full of melodramatic villainy.The cast, settings, and wardrobe were all very attractive, and I thought the actors did a superb job considering how weak the material was. The movie was prettily filmed and boasted a soundtrack that was carefully crafted to cue the viewer about what emotions he should be experiencing throughout. Megon McDonough sang sweetly and provided the film with some of its best moments.If you love Danielle Steel, you will love this film. If you love archetypal romance, you will love this film. I did not. I was able to sit through it, but it was close.