Metacritic reviews

The first measure of Arteta's shrewdness as a storyteller is in the no-fuss way he reveals the nature of the father's business.

Stays consistently interesting through some risky tonal shifts.

Though Star Maps lacks a strong ending or a Ratso Rizzo to play off Spain's ingenuous hustler, it introduces Arteta as a filmmaker with a credible style and a flair for caustic storytelling. And his film takes the interesting tack of sharing Carlos' matter-of-fact outlook.

Star Maps has youthful flaws -- all the Anglos, this film’s "others," are impotent or at least twisted -- but it is itself evidence of filmmaking’s power over Arteta, and his future power in the fantasy biz.

Occasionally, the unevenness of the performances in Star Maps becomes distracting and the dastardliness of the characters' dysfunction impinges the bounds of dramatic believability, yet you will be hard-pressed to find another directorial debut this year that equals the narrative and structural audacity of Star Maps.

Star Maps is the work of a talented group of young actors and filmmakers anxious to try as much as they can and see what works. Not all of it does.

Star Maps reveals its larger (and less interesting) social intentions with a downbeat, slap-in-the-face finale, but along the way it has some good domestic grotesquerie and a layered, ironic attitude toward sex.

An ambitious debut feature.

Star Maps is not, to be sure, boring. But it is wildly unfocused.

The filmmaker's command of storytelling is less than assured, and with the exception of Figueroa and Annette Murphy (who plays Pepe's mistress Letti), the film's performances range from awkwardly wooden to amateurishly awful. While Arteta is definitely a filmmaker to watch, this particular movie is a testament to aspirations that considerably exceed his present abilities.