Directed By Nicholas Winding Refn

Starring – Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu

The Plot – A troubled young woman (Thatcher) searches for her father as a mysterious mist engulfs a futuristic metropolis, unleashing a deadly and elusive entity. Her quest collides with an American G.I (Melton), who’s on a harrowing odyssey to rescue his daughter from hell.

Rated R for adult language, some strong/bloody violence, and sexual content

Her Private Hell – Official Trailer – In Theaters July 24

POSITIVES

Being a hardcore admirer of a polarizing director like Nicholas Winding Refn, there’s a level of unavoidable scrutiny that typically has me on the defensive end of his detractor’s vitriolic venom, and while Her Private Hell certainly isn’t going to change the opinions of those rubbed the wrong way by his esoteric method of storytelling, for those enamored by his illuminous artistry, it’s an exotically entrancing fever dream that tepidly toes the line between surrealist pageantry and stomach-turning reality. Like his previous feature length efforts, the film is enriched by stimulatingly hypnotic style that not only brings this neon nightscape of a nightmare to life for those female protagonists involved, but also paints a vividly transfixing allure enhanced by smoothly slick camera movements, futuristic set designs, and fade away editing techniques mirroring the very overlapping fog patterns of the thickly ominous dread that surrounds these conflicted characters. While style has never even slightly been a problem for Refn’s one-of-a-kind techniques, there’s an effortless execution to ultraviolet ambiance that most effectively pays homage to the kinds of Italian Giallo films that the director grew up idolizing, with picture perfect radiance of every frame making the argument for it to be among the designated short list of the most beautifully intoxicating presentations of the entire cinematic year. Refn’s efforts are matched beat for beat and blow for blow by another spine-tingling score from longtime Brian De Palma collaborator, Pino Donaggio, whose stirringly scintillating string instrumentals and evolving complexity towards atmospheric ambiance appraise much needed rampant urgency that isn’t always mirrored by Refn’s deliberately sauntered storytelling pacing. In many ways, I compare Donaggio’s compositions to those of Bernard Herrmann’s on the Psycho soundtrack, where initial repetition gives way to orchestral expansion, in ways that pay off manically for the integrity of the scene, and while I certainly sulked in the unfortunate absence of one of my all-time favorite composers and longtime Refn collaborator, Cliff Martinez, Donaggio’s influential impact is the very inflating breath that so many of these physical conflicts require to grip attention from a battle-tested audience, allowing just enough underlining emphasis to feel distinctly prominent, without the need to take the entirety of attention away from such meaningful visuals. Aside from exceptional filmmaking from every section of the cinematic spectrum, the script, while admittedly conflicted in its execution, does carry with it the same kind of thought-provoking social commentary in the mystique of its cryptic movements, but the kind that is unlike anything that Refn has dissected at this point in his career, with some specifically dark and hefty themes pertaining to sexual repression and coercive control explored sexually and subconsciously within these characters. Like all Refn movies, the ideal towards interpretation is to leave every theory accessible in the exploration, and while these two talking points might not be the complete pie of what Nicholas is sifting through, it definitely becomes painstakingly apparent that it’s a meaningful slice of the narrative’s direction as quickly as the movie’s opening sequence, where the evidential toxicity in familial dynamics illustrates an abnormal connective discourse that telegraphs definition, even without the need to eviscerate shock and suspense from the air of the engagement. As expected, Refn explores this conflict with the grace and subtlety of a Mack truck plowing through a gasoline pump, but part of what I’ve always appreciated in him as a storyteller is his unabashed indulgence in painting these interactions as creepily and candidly as unflinchingly possible, and considering the only other two people in my auditorium were two older ladies in front of me, who couldn’t keep from squirming in their seats periodically throughout the film, I would say that Refn’s wandering eye for objectifying camera work on the bodies of his actresses seamlessly immerses us in the depraved depths of a scene’s integrity, outlining just enough crucial truth without the need to thematically nail it down to just one distinct thing among the movie’s creativity. Lastly, the performances themselves are admittedly a mixed bag throughout certain dramatic developments towards their characters, however Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, and Havana Rose Liu each lend themselves committedly to Refn’s distinctly dry dialogue deliveries, with each of them attempting something so emotionally expressive than any of them have experienced thus far in their careers. For Thatcher, her most defining moments certainly pertain to those unstable consistencies during the movie’s climax, with ratcheted intensity conveying the magnitude of her angsty unraveling, but Thatcher’s single best quality is in her capability to convey so much longing and sadness in her boldly penetrating eyes, and it’s in those registries where we receive the bitter truth about this character’s tortured history, with Thatcher embracing an internal vulnerability that increases tangibly with each passing minute. As for Melton and Liu, they each might play secondary in time allowance to Thatcher, but they more than make up in presence what they lack in opportunity, with the former digging deeper and darker into desperate depths that show an unforeseen edgier side full of physicality, while the latter Liu effortlessly conveys a manipulative confidence for sexuality that comes across as persistent without feeling aggressive, rounding out a trio of tantalizing turns manifesting the soulless shells of the repressed memories that bind their characters.

NEGATIVES

In terms of honesty, there’s plenty of detracting components to this movie’s execution that will inevitably leave it on the unfulfilling side of those either unfamiliar or unimpressed by Refn’s previous work, beginning with the tediousness of a screenplay that typically feels weighed down by unnecessary indulgences that directly compromise the manageable momentum of the movie’s pacing. While deliberation is fine for the deliveries of the characters, the prolonging of a lot of these scenes left me searching for transitions that simply weren’t there, and despite this movie merely clocking in at 104 minutes of screentime, the imbalance and impatient tug of war between dual arcs leave it feeling like two different films of material condensed into one cohesive feature, even testing the patience of a Refn fanatic like me, who typically can’t get enough of his enticing atmosphere. The sacrificial lamb in this scenario is unfortunately Melton’s arc, which is not only more compelling in his search for a child daughter, but also the evolutions of his character seeing him venturing down some dark corridors with little to no justification of such, and while I wholeheartedly understand that Thatcher receives top billing, it makes me wish that the script would’ve enacted more of that much-needed balance, especially with characterization already so minimal by Refn’s documented history. Refn himself isn’t free from scrutiny, as his grasp tonally of the material occasionally gets away from him during abrasively jarring sequences that come across as comical when the scene calls for vengeful anger. This isn’t necessarily a problem if the director has a proven history for blending and absorbing tones, however being that nothing about Drive, Vallhalla Rising, The Neon Demon, or Only God Forgives is even remotely unintentionally hilarious, it leaves periodic moments to this film’s execution feeling tumultuously tone deaf, especially alongside the inclusion of a bubbly obnoxious secondary character, who is nothing more than the inexperienced eyes and ears of the audience. Considering the tenderness of the aforementioned subject matter, it feels a bit inappropriate and insensitive to laugh at designated moments throughout, leaving it all the tougher to buy into the empathetic designs of these characters while at their most desperate. Finally, while Refn splits screenwriting responsibilities with co-writer Esti Giordani, this time around, the stink of his telegraphed dialogue still persists ten years after his last feature length project, where the thought-provoking invigoration of the interpretable material falls suspect to forced dialogue that absolves as much of the nuance and speculation of these interactions. These lines unnaturally shoe-horning as much reminder and exposition to the audience as possible, are easily forgiven when enacted by secondary characters who are purely there to drive the scene along, but when they are unloaded by our dynamic duo of established protagonists, it makes it all the tougher to invest seamlessly into their respective adversity, leaving this film free from the kind of integral compass needed to hook an audience to its indulging mystery.

OVERALL
Her Private Hell is both a sensorially stunning fever dream of frenzy, but also a frustratingly tedious narrative exploit, that tests the patience of Nicholas Winding Refn detractors just as much as it reaffirms those transfixed by the hypnotic Hell that he crafts so unapologetically. While the film does mark a bit of an underwhelming comeback for the visionary director that is more than a decade in the making, the exhilaration factor elicited between viscerally violent outbursts and attention-stealing visuals, offers more than enough spellbinding spectacle to simultaneously elicit an evocatively intoxicating immersive appeal, but also an inescapable purgatory for those condemned to sexually serve

My Grade: 6.2 or C