The Neon Demon
(USA, 117 min.)
Dir. Nicholas Winding Refn, Writ. Nicholas Winding Refn,
Mary Laws, Polly Stenham
Starring: Elle Fanning, Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote, Abbey
Lee, Alessandro Nivola, Christina Hendricks, Keanu Reeves.
 |
| Elle Fanning stars in The Neon Demon |
Nicholas Winding Refn scores a rebound with The Neon Demon. Following the repugnant
bloodbath of Only God Forgives, the enfant terrible of fluorescent Eurotrash
art cinema cruises closer to the speed of Drive
with The Neon Demon. The Neon Demon is a deliciously sordid strut down the runway right into the stiletto-heeled underbelly of consumer culture.
The Neon Demon,
hitting the theatres fresh from a Cannes premiere with reports of applause and jeers alike for its ‘jaw-dropping depravity,’ is a hypnotically vacuous study of a
culture that eats young women alive. Methodically paced and devilishly
stylised, The Neon Demon is bound to
elicit a love-it-or-hate-it response for pushing the envelope so far. If high
fashion is all about risks, then Neon
Demon cuts with abandon.
Elle Fanning sashays into the spotlight as Jesse, an
aspiring model who seems poised to be the next hot young thing in the Los
Angeles fashion scene. Fanning slays the role with her gutsiest and trickiest
performance yet. She has killer confidence as Neon Demon tasks her with striking a pose with a mix of virginal
innocence and turbo-charged sex appeal.
Jesse’s shades of inexperience and naïveté are exactly what
make her appealing to the power players on the scene. She signs with a top
agent named Jan (Christina Hendricks in a memorable cameo) who loves her look
and doesn’t bat an eye when she learns that Jesse’s only 16. “Just say you’re
19,” Jan advises Jesse. “18’s too obvious.”
Yes, Jesse’s in way over her head in high heels and haute
couture. But if Jan’s eagerness to put a minor in the big league seems sleazy,
Jesse’s first shoot is skin-crawlingly creepy. The photographer (Desmond
Harrington) sees the same youthful promise and illicit sex appeal in Jesse the
minute she walks onto the set in her fancy make-up and well-worn sneakers. He
closes the stage, forces her to strip, and proceeds to slather her in gold body
paint. His hands caress her body, violating her privacy while covering her up
and ultimately empowering her with ominously gold glitter. High on paint fumes
and the promise of fame, Jesse transforms into a pro and becomes a spawn of the
very culture that wants to eat her.
The Neon Demon
seduces like a runway model with its cold self-assurance, sleek poise, and
alluring palette. The vivid colours of the film pop off the screen like a
hallucinogenic haze as the intoxicating cinematography by Natasha Braier
envelopes the viewer in the entrancing façade of the fashion world. The pinks,
blues, purples, and reds of Neon Demon
are so bright, so gaudy, and so outrageously artificial that Refn firmly puts
Jesse in a surrealist allegoryland, like a rabbit hole through which Alice
stumbles. Visually, Neon Demon offers
some of the best work that Refn has ever done. The grotesque yet dazzling
sights of the film recreate the ambitious headspace Jesse needs to exceed her
competition. It creates a high akin to the drive for fame that fuels her even
if she knows it will be her downfall. The excellent score by Cliff Martinez is
dark and haunting. It’s a driving, throbbing pulse that propels the film into
the belly of the beast as Jesse enters a very, very strange empire with chic
designs and ghoulish frenemies lining her way to the sacrificial altar.
The chic, catty rivals that Jesse encounters in her pursuit
of the runway are an equally hungry and fascinating bunch. There’s Ruby (Jena
Malone), the peculiar and homely make-up artist who takes a motherly interest
in Jesse when she sees the small town girl with dreams of stardom rivals
dangerously close to the fashion scene predators. The few fleeting glimpses of
humanity one sees in The Neon Demon
arise in Malone’s earnest turn as one of the only people who initially appears
to be uncorrupted by the spell of the spotlight. Her protective and genuine
concern for Jesse guides the film through its unsettling dark turn and makes
the final cuts deeper and more ghastly.
The Neon Demon
gives Ruby a pair of Tweedledee and Tweedledum sidekicks in the form of the glamorous
plastics Gigi (Bella Heathcote) and Sarah (Abbey Lee). The former is a
hilariously brainless twit with every inch of her blonde body nipped and tucked
to perfection. Heathcote gives one of those wonderful performances that steal
absolutely every frame of the film in which it appears. She’s also the most
sympathetic figure in the film because she’s such an obvious victim to the
vapidity and superficiality of consumer culture: it’s eaten her from the inside
out, leaving a beautiful surface with nothing inside. Sarah, on the other hand,
is rotten to the core. A frigid ice queen with a distinct high-calibre beauty
that contrasts with Jesse’s sweet innocence, Sarah’s a wicked force: empty,
driven, and all consuming.
Refn perilously treads the line of misogyny, but he balances
the satire with a very fine line of dark humour. The film rejects any pretense
to realism with its synthetic trimmings and the director, along with two female
co-writers, wraps Jesse’s dream in a biting critique of self-obsession and the
consumer culture that makes victims of the young women who sacrifice their
bodies and lives for the beast. The film
manages this teetering act by reigning in much of the sex and violence that
acts as Refn’s calling card in his previous works. This lurid, sexy, arty pop-art pulp often plays like the kind of work to which Brian De Palma aspires, but often relegates to the gutter.
Refn shows admirable restraint, especially in realising the
violations Jesse encounters on her rise. Her stripped and golden photoshoot,
for example, hides the nakedness of Fanning’s body and instead trains the
camera on her flushed face and the hands of the man who gilds her skin. The
effect is one of greater defilement than nudity could offer and the creepiness
is two-fold in putting the burden of imagining the act upon the audience. Just
when it seems as if Refn has fully sobered up, though, The Neon Demon climaxes in a riotously foul nightmare that includes
both cannibalism and necrophilia. This film is not for the squeamish. But even when The Neon Demon regurgitates the atrocious deed that becomes Jesse’s
fate, it chews up what it spits out without smattering any blood on its
pristine surface. How elegant, how restrained, how outrageous, and how
horrifying it is.
The Neon Demon
opens in Canada beginning June 24 from D Films.
