Sean Baker’s 2012 film “Starlet”, which happens to be available in South Korea via a local streaming service, is about the unlikely relationship between two very different people. Although their first encounters are rather awkward to say the least, they come to understand and care more about each other along the story, and we are touched by a series of realistic human moments observed from them.

At the beginning, the movie, which is mainly set in the San Fernando Valley area of California, introduces us to Jane (Dree Hemingway), a young woman who has resided in a little apartment rent by her friend/colleague Melissa (Stella Meave) and Melissa’s boyfriend Mikey (James Ransone). On one day, Jane goes to a yard sale held in front of some old lady’s house in their neighborhood because she needs some pieces of furniture to decorate her own little place for herself and a little pet dog named Starlet, but she only ends up buying a little Thermo bottle instead.

Not long after she returns to her place, Jane discovers something hidden inside the Thermo bottle. There are actually a bunch of rolls of hundred dollar bills, so she decides to spend some of them just because she needs to buy some stuffs, but then she feels like stealing the money from that old lady. Therefore, she subsequently goes to that old lady’s house again, but the old lady simply rejects her right from the start.

Nevertheless, Jane is not deterred at all, while feeling more guilt about the old lady. She approaches the old lady more actively in the next time, and the old lady, who is named Sadie (Besedka Johnson). reluctantly accepts a little kindness from Jane despite her reservation. It goes without saying that Sadie naturally becomes more suspicious about whatever this supposedly kind young woman wants from her, but she eventually opens her heart more to Jane, and then Jane finds herself spending more time with Sadie.

And we get to know more about both of these two very different people. As a longtime widow who has lived alone by herself in her little suburban house, Sadie often feels lonely, but things have recently been rather hard for her. Just because she has no one to take care of her around her, her insurance company often demands more safety restrictions on her house, and that means she may have to give up a lot in case of her small but precious private garden.

Meanwhile, the movie gradually shows more of how Jane, Melissa, and Mikey earn their living day by day. All of them are associated with the local adult film industry in one way or another, and we come to gather that both Jane and Melissa are fairly well-known for their sex work, though Melissa is relatively less diligent compared to Jane. As a matter of fact, she gets suspended by their company boss for making one trouble after another, and that consequently leads to some promotion for Jane.

Considering its main subject, you may expect the movie to become quite seedy, but many of its adult film production scenes in the film are actually dry and realistic with enough thoughtfulness and restraint. Besides casting several real adult film professionals in a number of minor roles for some extra authenticity, Baker, who wrote the screenplay with Chris Bergoch, imbues these key scenes with considerable verisimilitude as wisely avoiding making them too exploitative or voyeuristic, and we observe more of how casual Jane and others around her are about their another working day. They are simply there for earning another paycheck, and there is nothing particularly terrible or special about that in their viewpoint. As a matter of fact, Jane’s company boss turns out to be a fairly sensible businessman with some professional ethics and principles, and he even advises Jane that she should distance herself more from Melissa and Mikey (And he turns out to be right, by the way).

Regardless of how she actually feels about her current profession, Jane chooses not to tell that much about her work to her new friend, and that is another source of suspension in the story. As getting to know more about Sadie, Jane really wants to do something really special for her later in the story, and that leads to more tension later in the story – especially after Melissa eventually discovers the money in Jane’s room.

While the movie inevitably arrives at the narrative point where its two main characters confront what lies beneath their relationship in one way or another, it also surprises us with the emotional poignancy observed from the following choices made by them, respectively. I will not go into details here, but I can tell you instead that the eventual ending of the film will take you back to the simple but sublime final touches of those great short stories by Raymond Carver, and you will reflect more on how they will go on with their respective free will.

The two actresses at the center of the film click with each other well as the contrasting duo in the story. While Dree Hemingway brings considerable life and personality to her supposedly plain archetype role, Besedka Johnson ably complements her co-star at every moment of their crucial scenes, and her unadorned performance is all the more touching because this non-professional actress died not long after the movie was released in late 2012. Around Hemingway and Johnson, Stella Meave and James Ransone are also solid in their respective supporting parts, and you may be amused to see Karren Karagulian, who would work with Baker again in Oscar-winning “Anora” (2024).

On the whole, “Starlet”, which is incidentally Baker’s fourth feature film, is an engaging mix of comedy and drama, and you can clearly discern how Baker already established his own artistic style and territory even at that time. As subsequently making “Tangerine” (2015) and “The Florida Project” (2017), he advanced much further than before, and, as many of you know, the rest is the history.