Teenage pop star Christopher Wilde (Sterling Knight) is at the top of his game, but small town girl Jessica Olson (Danielle Campbell) might be the only girl in America who couldn’t care less about this blue-eyed heartthrob. Quite unlike her pushy big sister Sarah (Maggie Castle) who, obsessed with all things Wilde, drags Jessica away from their family vacation in California to sneak into an L.A. nightclub where Christopher performs at his rich girlfriend Alexis’ (Chelsea Staub) birthday. However, Alexis is only dating him to raise her celebrity profile and invites an army of paparazzi to the birthday bash, to the annoyance of Christopher’s best friend Stubby (Brandon Mychal Smith) who wishes Christopher would stop doing whatever everybody tells him to do. Whilst eluding the press, Christopher literally bumps into Jessica. This sparks a weekend of misadventure wherein Christopher falls in love with the ordinary girl and Jessica learns the spoiled celebrity is really a nice guy. A big-time director wants Christopher for his next movie but only on the condition he keep his name out of the tabloids. To appease his agents, who also happen to be his parents (Lauren Bowles and Ron Pearson), Christopher denies the relationship to the press and breaks Jessica’s heart.
Yet another Disney teen comedy about showbiz folk struggling to “keep it real.” The House of Mouse have been cranking out this kind of well-worn tale throughout the last decade, ranging from the surprisingly adroit (Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)) to the underwhelming (A Modern Twain Story: The Prince and the Pauper (2007)) with seemingly no end in sight as their media-saturated tween audience continue to lap this stuff up. Starstruck has a lightweight rom-com plot with stock characters and a mildly interesting, though perhaps unintentional twist in that this time the celebrity is a decent bloke who initially can’t convince the average girl he is worthy of her.
Christopher calls Jessica “the queen of snap judgements” and to an extent he is right. No matter how vehemently she insists he is a shallow, self-absorbed egomaniac who doesn’t know his servants’ names, Christopher comes across as nice, polite and charming. Which you might think undermines the whole point of the story, except Christopher is also hopelessly eager to please. Everybody, including his parents, wants something from him and he never says no. He is an automaton of the kind Disney are often accused of manufacturing for today’s teen market.
Likeable sitcom star Sterling Knight convinces as the blue-eyed teen idol and has the comedic chops to make his accident-prone antics watchable. For once the bubblegum pop soundtrack is rather agreeable (or else I’m losing my edge as I get older), with Knight’s rendition of the title track especially catchy. Newcomer Danielle Campbell is stuck playing a rather crabby heroine, but thaws as the plot progresses and reveals an endearing mixture of steely resilience and vulnerability.
Screenwriters Barbara Johns and Annie DeYoung - who wrote the charming Princess Protection Programme (2009) for Disney, as well as the horror remakes Earth vs. the Spider (2001) and The Day the World Ended (2001) - tap teen fantasies like the idea of being whisked away by a superstar and having your celebrity crush miraculously reciprocated, but the film is better in its second half. Confronted by paparazzi, Jessica retaliates with a surprisingly potent critique of the tabloid press and the cult of celebrity that doubles as a sweet summation of Chris’ finer qualities and prompts him to rebel (albeit in a sanitized, Disney way) against being a robot. The movie climaxes with a big romantic gesture at the school dance, the kind of thing that makes teenage girls swoon and grownup male writers feel a little embarrassed for enjoying stuff like this.
