REVIEW: ‘Superstar (2025)’ Tells A Bizarre Story

Superstar (2025) (Superestar), a Spanish docudrama mini-series directed by Claudia Costafreda and Nacho Vigalondo, explores the life, successes, and hardships of pop sensation Tamara (Ingrid Garcia Jonsson) through the lens of those around her. It takes the singer’s story into some strange places, as it delves into weird, metaphysical concepts that leave more confusion than answers in its wake. 

I have rarely sat down at my keyboard to type up a review, only to find myself as utterly lost for what to say as I am now. Looking back over the six episodes that comprise Superstar, I find myself grasping at any semblance of coherence I can cling to to structure my feelings.

The bizarre, disjointed, and frequently pointless antics of its characters have left me with little to say about the journey I just went on, but to ask a resounding “Why?!” I’ve rarely wanted six hours of my life back so badly. Each of the series’ six episodes focuses on one major character, with the last finally centering on Tamara, sort of.

The storytelling mechanism in Superstar (2025) makes no sense and is impossible to follow.

Each character follows their own journey as the series tries to build up the central figure’s presence through the eyes of others. While this makes sense in principle, the narrative is generally too busy delving into the bizarre circumstances of each episode’s central figure to reveal much about Tamara, who is the focus of this entire series. 

Episode one centers on Tamara’s mother, Maragrita (Rocío Ibáñez). Margarita has the curious quirk that she cannot see her daughter as anything but a 13-year-old girl. This shortcoming is used to highlight Margita’s difficulty with letting her daughter go off into the world to seek stardom as a singer. 

Despite being a bit heavy-handed, the concept does fine. It makes sense and illustrates the point well. However, other elements, like a strange hotel that may be its own pocket universe, quickly muddy the waters of what the point of the story is. And while this entry makes sense at its core, the following episodes feel like an accelerating descent into madness. 

Each episode becomes more strange and pointless than the last.

One episode focuses on an individual who seems to be split in two, possibly bilocating, or perhaps not where he thinks he is, and maybe people can see both of him. Another episode involves a cult-like group that believes Tamara is the “Femichrist” who will end the world unless a man who hears the future from fruit stops her.

The weirdness quickly gets out of hand with no apparent point to any of it. There doesn’t seem to be any lesson, moral, or conundrum to ponder, just weirdness for the sake of being weird. 

Each episode becomes more strange and pointless than the last, until the series tries to bring it all back around in the finale, when we finally get an episode focusing on Tamara herself. While the weirdness serves some purpose here, much like the opening episode with her mom, Tamara’s story becomes heavy-handed to an extreme.

Superstar (2025) constantly bludgeons the audience with the point.

Superstar not only bludgeons the audience with the point, but it also concocts the most convoluted way possible to reach the point in the first place. 

While the stories often feature truly unhinged concepts and never make sense, the cast of Superstar can’t be faulted for trying to sell their characters. Every character trait is leaned into hard, making the personalities that exist within the stories feel fitting to the tone. And, for better or worse, they succeed. 

The visual presentation does a good job of recreating the past when episodes dive back in time. With some scenes dating back into the 70s and 80s, the show uses these period moments to their fullest, creating a believable facsimile of those times. 

Superstar is ultimately a trainwreck of a story. Disjointed, bizarre for no reason, and often listless in its narrative, the series does little but confuse and annoy. I cannot recommend it. The only positive spin I can put on watching it is that for the rest of my life, when I watch something I don’t like, I will hopefully be able to say, “At least it wasn’t Superstar.”

Superstar (2025) is streaming now on Netflix.