‘Wishing On A Star’: Tallinn Review

Dir: Peter Kerekes. Italy/Slovakia/Czech Republic/Austria/Croatia. 2024. 99mins.

Some people believe that fate is written in the stars. Astrologer Lucianna de Leoni, working out of a baroque and slightly down-at-heel turreted villa in the Veneto region of Italy, takes a more flexible approach. To realise their dreams (of love, wealth, or just a new start) she sends her clients on a carefully calibrated birthday trip, for them to be reborn under a new sky. The latest film from Slovak director Peter Kerekes (107 Mothers, Velvet Terrorists) Wishing On A Star is a warm, eccentric and frequently amusing documentary hybrid that maps the journeys of Lucianna and her client as they pursue their dreams.

Warm, eccentric and frequently amusing

This film feels like an outlier in the current non-fiction landscape which, perhaps understandably, seems dominated by the crushing horrors of contemporary life. With its quirky, larger than life characters, jaunty music and eye for absurdity, Wishing On A Star is reminiscent in tone to some of the more droll episodes of the BBC documentary series Modern Times. The film, which screens in Tallinn having premiered in Venice could be an attractive proposition for documentary specialist distributors looking for offbeat non-fiction crowd-pleasers.

Lucianna is a big believer in new beginnings, both for her clients and for her immediate family. A terrific opening shot shows a chair chucked through the window at the very top of the tower that looms over her home. It’s followed by various other bits of furniture, a frying pan and some ornaments. It’s the new year, and Lucianna, her husband and daughter burn their discarded possessions in a ritual bonfire: “We burn the old so the new can come.”

She interrogates her family over their wishes for the coming year. Her placid husband is happy with things the way they are; her daughter would like a new job. Lucianna, however, has grander ambitions – she would like to relocate back to Naples, the city of her birth. But while Lucianna is in the wish-granting business, her own dreams have, until now, been placed on a back-burner.

Clients also share their hopes for the future, and Lucianna squints at her star charts and a map of the world. She’s part astrologer, part travel agent. And, when needed, she’s also a counsellor, offering sage advice to the women – and they are almost all women – who pay for her bespoke services.

A pair of bickering identical twins, Adriana and Giuliana, who have interlinked wishes for each others’ futures, are sent to Beirut, where they continue to argue but reach an accord over the big question of motherhood. Giovanni, a lonely undertaker, would like a wife and a family, if only to appease his overbearing mother. Lucianna suggests Brazil as his birthday astrological revamp and, in setting the wheels in motion for his trip, Giovanni stumbles into a relationship with the female undertaker who he recruits to run his business while he’s away. It soon becomes clear, however, that Giovanni’s bad romantic luck has nothing to do with his horoscope and everything to do with his relationship with his stifling and judgemental parent.

Elsewhere, a young mother of two hopes for the rekindling of her cold and distant husband’s affections. Lucianna looks doubtful and suggests Anchorage in Alaska. The woman settles for a stuffed polar bear and a washing-up bowl full of ice cubes in her living room as an alternative. 

The lines between fiction and non-fiction are deliberately blurred – there are clearly elements and situations that are scripted and set up, but Kerekes has no control on how a situation will play out once he has trained his camera onto it. The result can be a little episodic – the chapter dealing with Giovanni is closed rather despondently and abruptly for example. But the stars align neatly for a closing sequence that sees Luciana take her own birthday trip – to Naples, where else?