★★★1/2

Moving, honest, and unafraid to challenge easy narratives or political talking points, Under A Million Stars takes a sobering look at the homelessness problem in Seattle, while arguing that unhoused communities are more prevalent in wealthy cities than in poor and impoverished places.

Amid the activists, social workers, and boots-on-the-ground volunteers who seek to make a difference and build connections with unhoused individuals in and around the city, co-writer and director Chezik Tsunoda has her instincts dialed in when crafting this story. She lets two significant characters drive the personal nature of the narrative: Danny, a 64-year-old man who has lived outside for nearly all of his adult life, and Star, a young, single mother who is trying to do everything she can to be a present and loving mother to her infant daughter Luna. 

These stories resonate because they represent generational differences in how people experience homelessness. In addition, Danny has an opportunity to move into a living facility while Star is struggling to remain in hers. As is pointed out by an outreach worker in the film, providing housing to someone experiencing homelessness is not a guaranteed solution to solving the homelessness crisis. It creates upheaval, uncertainty, and as Star shares, anxiety: at any moment she is afraid someone will come to her door and evict her, change her situation, or ruin any stability in her life. “Everytime good stuff happens to me, something bad happens,” she shares.

At a well-paced 77 minutes, Tsunoda takes Seattle’s former mayor, Bruce Harrell, to task for increasing the sweeps that she argues were enacted because of pressure to clean up the city and “fix downtown.” Under his leadership, deaths of unhoused people went up. Sweeps intensified and the promise he made to open thousands of emergency housing shelter units in his first year never occurred. Interviewed on camera, he gets upset and borderline hostile when confronted with his lack of efficacy. The exchange is uncomfortable and telling.

For all the ways Tsunoda presents her thesis and tells these stories, I found myself wishing the film offered a clearer call to action. The advocacy here is obvious and the film’s stance for many watching is unimpeachable. The stories are compelling and moving. However, the film offers no entry point for others to become involved. There is no personal plea. 

And while the film ends with a hopeful conclusion, the realities of the crisis remain. The debates continue to intensify. Tsunoda’s decision to conclude with a feel-good moment is admirable, but Under A Million Stars misses the opportunity to fully deliver the urgency around an argument it spends time carefully building.  

Under A Million Stars was screened as part of the 52nd Seattle International Film Festival.