Review of The Neon Demon (2016) by Foxgrove — 25 Jul 2016

Arrogantly, but perhaps not entirely undeserved, Nicolas Winding Refn stamps his initials all over the opening credits of ‘The Neon Demon, a stylish, flawed and intermittently stunning visual experience that hypnotises even as it frustrates. Refn’s achievement is almost totally due to his precise and immaculate framing of each sequence and, indeed, each shot. Aided no end by knockout cinematography it all adds up to a fascinating watch as well as being a superb exercise in visual story telling. Admittedly as well as being enticing it is also baffling and there are more than a few longueurs (Fanning’s end of show cat walk being the most glaring example) that could have been excised along the way. Also the film has a couple of rather nasty and distasteful scenes within its framework, one of which involves a knife and the other a dead body, which will certainly alienate a few viewers. Refn’s direction is really better than the slight story deserves. Whereas ‘Drive’ employed a visual style to compliment the screenplay, ‘The Neon Demon’ demonstrates the exact reverse. It does, however, have a good and all-consuming final word about the fashion industry which does compliment most of what has gone before and is certainly not anti-climatic.

Technically the film is outstanding with kudos especially deserved in the area of costumes, make-up and sound.