Review of Vox Lux (2018) by Glenn G — 23 Oct 2018

The opening scenes of "Vox Lux" are nothing short of magnificent. Willem Dafoe's narration grounds the film and helps to create an anticipatory gravitas. There are unforgettably horrific visuals, exacerbated by jarring cutaways and a jiggling camera. All of this contributes to a sense of disorientation while also creating deep excitement about what's to come. Then the credits begin to roll, as if the film has concluded. The viewer is literally squirming with anticipation. Unfortunately, the balance of the film is a series of missed opportunities and, ultimately, an over-long denouement.

Thirteen-year-old Celeste (Raffey Cassidy) is a survivor of a grisly school shooting on Staten Island. Unable to put her adolescent thoughts and feelings into words, she co-opts a song written by her sister for her part in the memorial service. The video goes viral, and mononymous Celeste is born, instantly whisked away to Manhattan for demos, production meetings and, eventually, a trip to Stockholm to cut her first record with a legendary producer. One intuits that it's all moving much too fast. Celeste's rapid rise to celebrity status and her too-soon loss of innocence parallel many of the events, particularly the burgeoning cynicism, of the culture around her. September 11 is thrown in at the end of this sequence, just in case we miss the point.

The final segment features a 31-year-old Celeste (Natalie Portman), filled with cynicism and self-loathing, fueled by booze and drugs. As some have observed, this is "A Star is Born" for the bubblegum set. The film concludes with Celeste performing in her hometown, hoping for a comeback from a series of personal and professional disasters in 2017. To her credit, Portman does her own singing in this closing sequence, although her power-pop repertoire hardly calls for the vocal range of Freddie Mercury.

Where the film fails is as metaphor, analogy or any sort of clear-eyed social commentary. Claiming to offer "A Twenty-First Century Portrait," director Brady Corbet ("The Childhood of a Leader" 2015) creates a picture frame that contains eye-catching colors but no real depth, texture or context. Is Celeste's loss of innocence inevitable? Is success always a result of whim, chance or random circumstance? Is the will to succeed always based in insecurity, if not self-loathing? Does success always come at another's expense? Perhaps "Vox Lux" is mirroring contemporary culture simply by failing to take a clear stance on anything. Alternatively, this film's ultimate contribution may be its confirmation that truth and self-awareness are hard-earned. Unfortunately, "Vox Lux" is cotton candy - an airy confection that, upon close examination, offers little substance.