The Neon Demon - DVD Review

Starring Elle Fanning, Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote, Abbey Lee, Keanu Reeves, Desmond Harrington, Karl Glusman and Christina Hendricks.
Written by Nicolas Winding Refn, Mary Laws & Polly Stenham.
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn.

★★½

Wow. Nicholas Winding Refn is one pretentious, ambitious, vainglorious artiste (if it's not obvious from when he puts his initials NWR under the title). The guy knows how to set up beautiful and disturbing imagery. The more movies he makes, the more experimental he seems to get, which is fine if you can sweep your audience up in your vision.

This movie focusses on Jesse (Elle Fanning), a teenage model who's just arrived in Los Angeles and finds instant success, creating jealousy among the other models in her social circle. She's taken under the wing of Ruby (Jena Malone), a make-up artist who may want her for herself. This movie has a lot to say about beauty, about artifice, and about obsession.

As for Refn's filmography, this isn't near as good as Drive, and it isn't near as bad as Only God Forgives. I couldn't really get lost in the story, as I was too aware of a director lurking over every frame, and it gets kinda porny, but I give him points for boldness.

Only God Forgives - DVD Review

Starring Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm, Rhatha Phongham, Gordon Brown and Tom Burke.
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn.

★

I get the feeling this is a movie that Refn and Gosling just had to get out of their system. I had higher hopes for their second collaboration, after they'd made the excellent Drive, but my guess is that Drive was more of the exception than the rule for the rest of Refn's career.

This movie is all macho posing while dark lights put actors in music-video scenes. Ryan Gosling is Julian, a gangster who runs a boxing ring in Thailand. When Julian's scumbag brother Billy is killed, Crystal, the matriarch of this crime family (Kristin Scott Thomas), flies in and demand some heads roll.  There's no reason to root for Julian, since Billy pretty much deserved what he got, but in a film where almost everyone's evil, well, people are going to suffer.

The antagonist here is Chang, head of the local police force, and the man who condoned Billy's murder. He likes to dispense justice with a sword. So while a showdown with Julian seems inevitable, the showdown with Crystal was more intriguing to me (even though it stank). After all, Julian looks like he's barely awake through most of the movie. That look on his face in the poster? he has that expression the entire movie.

People walk slowly in this movie, and it usually feels like Refn is trying to pad the runtime, which is a mercifully short 89 minutes.