The concept of beauty being only skin deep is taken to new extremes, in Nicolas Winding-Refn’s newest psychological thriller “The Neon Demon”. The story begins with aspiring young adult model Jesse (Elle Fanning) following her dreams and moving to Los Angeles to seek fame as a cover girl. Almost right away, her youth and vitality are devoured recklessly by a group of beauty-obsessed women (Jena Malone, Abbey Lee, Bella Heathcote) who will take any means necessary to get what she has. Jesse comes to find out that the glitz and glamour of the Hollywood lifestyle is a brutal and unforgiving one, full of backstabbing and deceit for the long road to the top. In addition to the cast already mentioned, the film also stars Keanu Reeves and Christina Hendricks. Winding-Refn brings along his long time musical collaborator Cliff Martinez to round out his latest big budget experience that is sure to raise an eyebrow or two in luxurious style. “The Neon Demon” is rated R for disturbing violent content, bloody images, graphic nudity, a scene of vicious sexuality, and language.
To anyone who knows Nicolas Winding Refn’s style as a director, you know that style always comes first, and “The Neon Demon” is certainly no different. It is Refn’s most visually stunning achievement to date, and the entrancing visuals of this film really fire on all cylinders to what only films like “Drive” and “Only God Forgives” were hinting at in their presentations. This is Nicolas at his most artistic, and if these kind of art house films aren’t your cup of tea, then I wouldn’t even waste your time with this movie. What the man does is sample so many uses of coloring and shadows that really gave the movie a Dario Argento feel in his prime. The colors aren’t just for visual delight, but also for concepts and themes that entail each scene. Most Refn films are like puzzles, open to interpretation for the audience to grasp at their own mental debates, but so much of what the film’s colors represented to me were the very transformations in character for our main protagonist, and just how deep she has committed herself to the innocent girl she was at the beginning of the film. She (like us) is seduced by the lights and auras of the city of angels. Because we experience this journey of lights and colors with her first-hand, we too feel taken over by the concepts of fame and obsession.
Critically acclaimed musical composer Cliff Martinez also returns to team up once again with long-time collaborator Refn, and the two combine beautiful imagery with hypnotizing musical tones that embrace for the perfect union. “The Neon Demon” showcases such a taboo and seductive world, so Martinez embraces the strange by filling our ears with dark and ominous rhythm sections that had me easily stamping this as the very best musical score that I have heard midway through 2016 so far. What Cliff can do besides putting us in the middle of each scene by emotional display, is to let the audience sample the kinds of tones that make up such a dark and twisted sexual nightmare. The score is so important in Refn’s films, that you can usually find more than one scene where the film just drifts off and away from current day, and pauses everything to take us inside the realm of the current situation. It gets the audience motivated for what comes next, and I frankly couldn’t imagine a movie like this without the magic from the man who helms the keyboards.
If I was basing the film on a technical aspect, this movie would be a 10/10, but how is the script? Refn pens another story that doesn’t hand-feed us every little detail. There are some people (Like myself) who will be a little disappointed that not everything is told in a straight-forward manor, but this method does give his films great replay value once you figure out the mental block. What I didn’t enjoy was that some scenes were pretentious for the sake of pretentia, and what I mean is that twenty minutes could’ve easily been shaved off of this movie for long, drawn-out scenes that don’t accompany music or any kind of furthering of the plot. The film does have some strong feelings on Hollywood’s dangerous game of beauty, and just how far we torture ourselves to fulfill such a dream. The first 70 minutes floated by easily for me, as I found myself intrigued by the very mystery of the events and characters who were unfolding. My problem comes in the last twenty minutes of the movie. Not so much with the shocking exchange of events that will have everyone frozen in their seats, but with the anti-climatic ending that the movie caps on an otherwise haunting display of the game of obsession. It just kind of fizzles out, and I would’ve been fine with ending it when the big bombshell drops.
As for the performances, the film hits and misses on many of the cast’s deliveries. Elle Fanning….welcome to the world. This is the best performance so far of the 18-year-old starlet, and so much of her portrayal of Jesse is believable because she plays so close to home for this character. Elle too was cast in the spotlight at a very young age, and impressed well above her years. Nicolas’s decision to cast someone so young in one of his films with such adult concepts is impressive and hits the mark every time. Fanning is essentially portraying two characters in the movie: Jesse pre and post education among the model world elite. Her transformation is a slow-burning process, but she sporadically dazzles from beautiful to sexy by film’s end. Jenna Malone was the very best part of the movie for me. The film kind of paces itself on her actions, and you really find out by the end of the movie that more relies on her character than perhaps anyone else. Malone is the only friend that Jesse has, so she is our best chance at opening up this riddle wrapped inside of an enigma, and Jenna certainly feels like someone whose open arms can be comforting, if not deceiving. The misses for me came from the supporting performances of Lee and Heathcote. They aren’t terrible, and perhaps succeed on the almost robotic movements and speech patterns that Refn was going for when detailing the model community. My problem is that their delivery in line reads begins to rob me of all of my patience when short, inter-changeable scenes go on for far too long. I sat there fidgeting in my chair for them to hurry up whatever they were trying to say, and it really got annoying.
“The Neon Demon” is a tough recommendation to anyone who doesn’t like art house films or Nicolas Winding Refn. If you do fall into either of those categories, you will embrace a visually sound film and theater experience like no other in Hollywood today. The film feels like a partnership of the twisted cryptic scripts of David Lynch combined with the visionary cotton candy of Dario Argento in their primes. The film does suffer through some shallow levels through a lack of depth in script at times, but the provocative technical seduction is too much to not embrace with arms wide open.
8/10