Review of The Neon Demon (2016) by Nolan S — 29 Mar 2017

It is rarely hard to answer the questions: "Was this a good or a bad movie?" and "Did I like it or not?" Straight forward questions with straight forward answers. With The Neon Demon, it was a struggle for me to figure it out. Eventually I did decide that this was a fantastic film, but it came after much introspection.

The Rural Juror, I mean The Neon Demon is about a Jesse (Elle Fanning) who comes to LA to become a model. The film is an exploration of what it is to be beautiful, but like writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn's previous films, it takes place in an almost surreal type of reality.

Though this review doesn't contain actual story spoilers, I do caution proceeding forward. I feel like my enjoyment of the film was based on coming to the conclusions that I will be outlining in this piece. I recommend that you watch the trailer and it looks interesting based on that, then go see it, and don't read the rest of my review.

What is bad about the movie? The writing, both the plot and the dialogue. The plot of the movie, in a general sense, is everybody, the audience as well as the other characters in the film, staring at Elle Fanning. And the dialogue for the most part is people talking about how beautiful Elle Fanning is. The dialogue, in addition to being shallow, is also delivered in an almost robotic way with unnecessarily long pauses. Probably so people can stare at Elle Fanning more. Some of the lines wouldn't be out of place in Troll 2 or The Room. I don't want to blame the actor's though; it seems to be Refn's style (for example Drive).

What is good about the movie? Everything else. The Neon Demon is a gorgeous film. Some scenes are like fashion billboards come to life. Bright colors and strong shadows make for a visually stimulating two hours. The soundtrack give the movie an eerie, futuristic tone which works well together with the visual language.

I tend to be more of a plot focused person, but yet I like this movie. That is because even if the series of images themselves weren't brilliant, the product as a whole was. The Neon Demon's poor writing gets the benefit of the doubt, because if the filmmakers are able to craft such a visually wonderful film, then surely the bad writing was on purpose. There were only a few lines of notable dialogue. "Beauty isn't everything, it is the only thing," and "You wouldn't have given her a second glance if she wasn't beautiful." The film practices what it preaches - it is visually stunning but otherwise vapid, and yet I went to see it. Based on the trailer, which showcased the visual, I went to see Neon Demon. If it wasn't beautiful, I might not have given it a second glance. There are probably plenty of well written movies that have skipped because they looked bad. Society places an enormous value on physical beauty over inner beauty and turn out, I am not immune to that. This film succeeded where Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring did not. Both were vapid movies about vapid people, but The Neon Demon actually had a deeper point.