Review of The Neon Demon (2016) by Glenn G — 02 Jul 2016

UNDER THE BEAUTIFUL SKIN - My Review of THE NEON DEMON (4 Stars).

It's nearly impossible to pull off a film that's aggressively shallow and glacially-paced, but Nicolas Winding Refn's (DRIVE) latest, co-written by Mary Laws and Polly Stenham, is a staggering, mesmerizingly beautiful, frustrating experience guaranteed to send many up the aisles, but equally rewarding to fans of challenging cinema.

Much like the late Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch, Refn likes to whittle down his scripts and shots to only the most essential elements. It takes a special kind of storytelling discipline to accomplish, as most filmmakers opt for verbal diarrhea and visual overload. Every shot counts in THE NEON DEMON, as does every dispassionate line of dialogue. Sure, one could edit out all of the painful pauses and have a 40 minute film, but that would detract from what I found to be a hypnotic, two hour diatribe against everything I hate about Los Angeles.

Yes, it's one of THOSE films: Hollywood is the center of all things evil. The "industry" chews them up and spits them out. Ambition is a blinding force. All true in certain circles, yet I feel Refn is an empty stylist who has finally found a subject matter ABOUT emptiness, and it's good fit. Elle Fanning plays Jesse, the new teenager in town who is about to set the modeling world on fire. Gawky, virginal, and certain her looks are her only talent, Jesse quickly grabs the attention of an extremely direct agent (Christina Hendricks), an intense top photographer (Desmond Harrington), a salivating designer (Alessandro Nivola), an innocent suitor (Karl Glusman from Gasper Noe's LOVE), and most importantly, an obsessed makeup artist (Jenna Malone) who pines for our heroine while introducing her to two "evil stepsisters" (Bella Heathcote and Abbey Lee) who resent her sudden rise. That Jesse's able to accomplish this while living in a fleabag motel managed by a sinister Keanu Reeves only adds fuel to the fire. That Jesse loses her innocence should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever seen VALLEY OF THE DOLLS or SHOWGIRLS. Unlike those over-the-top classics, THE NEON DEMON is as spare and as deliberate as UNDER THE SKIN. Like that film, it more closely resembles a museum installation than a standard narrative.

Los Angeles can feel like a city of raw ambition, where people are said to be willing to eat your mother to get ahead. Rein's film spells this out so clearly with every empty pause, every vacant stare, or with every hateful line of dialogue. If sociopaths had a sense of humor, they would enjoy the hell out of this!

A real standout in the cast, most of whom are called upon to do little more than pose and give off attitude is Jenna Malone. Wearing sleek pencil skirts and a wryly observant gaze, Malone cocks her head throughout and feeds off the sexual charge she gets from Fanning's innocent nymph. When she's given the chance to cut loose, she's stunning.

This is the first film I've seen that includes cinematographer Natasha Braier's work, and it's shot-for-shot stunning. The opening image alone, of Jesse slumbering on a couch, bleeding from a deep wound, captured my attention. Actually, I was sold before that with a title card featuring whooshing glitter. I mean, a movie about Los Angeles NEEDS glitter, right? Speaking of Los Angeles, in Refn's world, nobody exists except our principal actors. The streets appear desolate, perhaps to drive the theme of emptiness home. Regardless, every shot is strikingly composed and certain sequences blend images effectively, such as the runway show set piece. Instead of simply showing Jesse working the catwalk, he fractures her into three images so that she can kiss herself, and the end of the runway is depicted as three glowing inverted triangles. Perhaps this is our actual neon demon. It's never made clear. That demon could be raw ambition, narcissism, or Los Angeles itself.

Eventually the vacant mise-en-scene gives way to shocking violence, culminating in one of the best and most surprisingly hilarious sneers I've ever seen in a movie. This shift in tone led to many walkouts at the screening I attended, and the film was famously booed at the Cannes Film Festival. Granted, this is not a film for everybody. It feels like Refn's valentine to the majority of the people in this city who have toiled away endlessly only to see a fresh young upstart effortlessly experience a meteoric rise. Thus, only the bitter need go anywhere near this sexy, cool, awful, memorable, frustrating, boring, gorgeous film.