Nicolas Winding Refn is the director behind this film, the same guy who gave us Drive and Only God Forgives. I’ve never seen those movies, and maybe that’s the problem, because plenty of people who have swear Refn is a pure “style over substance” director. After sitting through The Neon Demon, I can confirm the substance here is meth laced with crack.
Elle Fanning stars as Jesse, a 16-year-old girl who rolls into Los Angeles with no parents, no job, no friends, no family, and a janky motel in Pasadena run by a manager who may or may not want to rape her in her sleep. So you already know things are going to end just peachy for our hero. After accepting a modeling gig from a photographer who makes Craigslist look like a safe space, she meets makeup artist Ruby (Jena Malone). Ruby decides to take Jesse under her wing to “protect” her from the nuthouse that is the modeling industry. Countless women have clawed for years to become famous models with little or no success. That’s the exact moment you realize this movie isn’t realistic—most of these girls would already be in porn by this point. But Jesse is so lucky and so “beautiful” that they strap a rocket to her back and she finds instant success, which doesn’t make many people happy.
Now, Elle Fanning is not ugly by any stretch of the imagination. But the lengths this movie goes to present her as some once-in-a-generation, industry-breaking beauty proves that Hollywood’s definition of beauty and my definition mix about as well as gasoline and Mountain Dew. She’s not on the Brian Peppers level of attractiveness (good luck Googling that one), yet the film expects us to believe everyone around her is going completely insane over her face. And “insane” is the key word for this entire review. Just about every character acts like they should be sectioned in a high-security facility with heavy medication and padded walls.
Keanu Reeves plays the sleazy motel manager Hank, and you can never tell if he’s just an asshole or if he’s about to stab you in the neck because you owe him two dollars. Jesse also has a photographer friend named Dean (Karl Glusman) who looks like the poster child for the sex-offender registry. Then there are the two other models, played by real-life models Bella Heathcote (Gigi) and Abbey Lee (Sarah). These two are nuttier than a soup sandwich, and you’d have to be to care this much about the modeling industry.The third act of this movie takes a hard left turn like a bus full of virgins heading straight for Camp Crystal Lake. After a dinner at Red Lobster and Jesse rejecting Ruby’s sexual advances, Ruby decides to release that frustration by having sex with a dead body… yeah.
After sitting through that pure WTF scene, we return to the mansion where Ruby stays, and the girls decide the only logical next step is to kill Jesse and eat her remains so they can absorb her mystical powers of beauty. Again… not a joke. It would be one thing if this twist dropped in the final five minutes and left you staring at the screen thinking “what the hell just happened?” But this disturbing turn of events drags on for the entire last 30 minutes of the film and makes you completely question what the point of the previous two hours even was.The Neon Demon has been described as a horror film, an art film, and a satire of Hollywood life. The problem is it never establishes a true motive or clear direction so you can understand exactly what it’s supposed to be. The film plays everything completely straight until the third act, so any notion that this is clever satire or effective horror is completely lost on the viewer. It never gives a clear indication of what you’re supposed to feel.
The one thing that absolutely works is the cinematography. Visually, it’s one of the best-looking movies of its year. The lighting, the neon color palette, and the carefully composed frames are an arthouse fanboy’s wet dream—complete with an epilepsy warning if you’re sensitive to flashing lights and saturated colors. Refn’s obsession with pure visual style is highly praised across all his movies; the problem is that everything else falls completely flat. There are endless awkward long pauses where literally nothing happens, which helps explain the near two-hour runtime (117–118 minutes). The movie wants to be a biting satirical takedown of LA’s beauty-obsessed culture, but you have to establish that tone early. By the time Refn finally delivers his “statement,” the audience has already checked out.
This is a film that treats beauty as a literal, transferable commodity that can be stolen through murder and cannibalism. It’s less a critique of the industry and more a glossy, slow-motion fever dream that mistakes emptiness for profundity. Jesse’s rapid rise is never questioned in any meaningful way. The jealousy of the older models is painted with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. And the supporting cast is stacked with people who behave like they wandered in from a completely different, far more deranged movie.I really can’t recommend The Neon Demon to anyone. If you are purely in love with cinematography and neon-drenched atmosphere, then yes, this is a technical showcase worth seeing once.
But if you want an actual story, coherent characters, or a message that doesn’t collapse into pure absurdity, The Neon Demon offers you absolutely nothing. In that case, I suggest you go watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows instead—at least that one has a coherent narrative and the decency not to pretend it’s high art while serving up necrophilia and model cannibalism.Style over substance has never been more accurate. Refn delivers a beautiful empty vessel filled with pure nonsense.
1/5
Society Reviews 
Leave a comment