Starring: Elle Fanning, Alessandro Nivola, Keanu Reeves, Christina Hendricks, Abbey Lee, Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote, Charles Baker, Jamie Clayton, Desmond Harrington, Karl Glusman
OUR RATING: ★★★☆☆
Story:
Horror-thriller directed and co-written by Nicolas Winding Refn. The Neon Demon (2016) the story centers on Jesse (Elle Fanning), an aspiring model who moves to Los Angeles, where her vitality and youth are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will use any means to get what she has.
Best Quotes
Roberto Sarno: Dean, we’re having a little debate over here we need your expertise.
Dean: Okay.
Roberto Sarno: You know Gigi, right?
Dean: Well, I mean, we just met.
Roberto Sarno: [to Gigi] Will you stand up so that he can take a look at you? Go on, stand up. Well…
Dean: Well, what?
Roberto Sarno: What do you think? You think she’s beautiful?
Dean: I don’t know. I mean, yeah I guess she’s fine.
Roberto Sarno: Yes, yes, that’s exactly the word I was looking for. She’s fine! Right?
Roberto Sarno: [he touches Gigi’s arm] You can sit down now, thanks. Thank you, Dean.
Roberto Sarno: True beauty is the highest currency we have. Without it, she would be nothing.
Dean: I think you’re wrong.
Roberto Sarno: Excuse me?
Dean: I said, I think you’re wrong.
Roberto Sarno: So are you going to tell me that it’s what’s inside that counts?
Dean: Yeah, that’s exactly what I think.
Roberto Sarno: Well I think, that if she wasn’t beautiful, you wouldn’t have even stopped to look.
Roberta Hoffmann: I see twenty or thirty girls come in here every day, mostly from small towns with big dreams, and they’re all good. Some girls crack under the pressure. You, you’re going to be great.
Jesse: When I was a kid, I would sneak out to the roof at night; I thought the moon looked like a big round eye. And I would look up and I’d say, “Do you see me?” You know, I’d stay out there for hours. Sometimes I’d fall asleep, just dreaming.
Dean: About what?
Jesse: What I would be.
Dean: What was that?
Jesse: I could never figure it out.
Ruby: Am I staring?
Jesse: A little.
Ruby: Sorry, you just have such beautiful skin. I’m Ruby by the way. Do you have a name or you want me to guess?
Jesse: Jesse.
Ruby: Jesse. And you just get to LA, Jesse?
Jesse: How did you know?
Ruby: You’ve got that look. Oh don’t worry honey, that whole deer in the headlights thing is exactly what they want.
Sarah: What’s it feel like to walk into a room and it’s like the middle of winter, you’re the sun?
Jesse: It’s everything.
Roberto Sarno: Beauty isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
Ruby: She has that thing.
Jack: Look at Jesse.
Jesse: I can’t sing, I can’t dance, I can’t write, no real talent. But I’m pretty, and I can make money off pretty.
Sarah: [to Jesse] People see you, they notice. Do you know how lucky you are? I’m a ghost.
Roberto Sarno: [referring to Jesse] Nothing fake, nothing false. A diamond in a sea of glass.
Jesse: I don’t want to be like them. They want to be like me.
Sarah: Who wants sour milk when you get fresh meat?
Jesse: I know what I look like. Women would kill to look like this.
Jesse: Women carve and stuff, praying that one day they’ll look like me.
Jesse: Are we having a party or something?
Jesse: You know what my mother used to call me? Dangerous. “You’re a dangerous girl.” She was right, I am dangerous.
Trailer:
Sarah asks Jesse, “What’s it feel like, to walk into a room, and it’s like in the middle of winter, you’re the sun?” Jesse replies, “It’s everything”.
Directed by Nicholas Winding Refn Starring Elle Fanning, Jena Malone, Karl Glusman, Christina Hendricks and Keanu Reeves. Jesse (Elle Fanning) an aspiring 16-year-old model moves to Los Angeles and with a help of an amateur photographer who takes her first photoshoot called Dean (Karl Glusman) manages to come across Ruby, a make-up artist who introduce her to the world of modelling but also to her two rival models Gigi (Bella Heathcote) and Sarah (Abbey Lee). The modelling world is the focal point of Neon Demon and beauty either manufactured or real is its main theme.
After just living for few days in Los Angeles Jesse manages to get signed in a modelling agency by Roberta (Christina Hendricks) which leads her to a meteoritic rise to the modelling world to the dismay of Gigi and Sarah. Gigi and Sarah are both experienced models who have done countless plastic surgeries that at one point Gigi admits with a complacent grin that her plastic surgeon calls her “the bionic woman”. When Jesse asks Gigi, “You had work done?” she answers, “You say that like it’s a bad thing. Sweet, plastic is just good grooming. Imagine going a year without brushing your teeth”. Jesse youth and beauty is the features that makes her stand out from the other models but they are also the things that bring turmoil in her life as she lacks any artificial quality which is a hard attribute to find in a model.
Nicholas Winding Refn’s Neon Demon is a blend of David Lynch, Mario Bava and Dario Argento especially in its third act when surrealism collides with horror/slasher elements and leaves us breathless and disturbed with the abundance of blood and gruesome scenes. Neon Demon’s cinematography has vibrant and lush colours and meticulous composition which is overflowing with symbolism as the film nears its end and the menacing and ambient score by Cliff Martinez creates tension and the lurking of concealed danger that hovers above Jesse all throughout the film, the best example of this danger is perfectly demonstrated in one sequence: when Jesse returns to her room, before opening the door she hears a strange noise, so she thinks that an intruder has manage to enter her room, so she calls the manager (Keanu Reeves) who comes to her aid and discover that a cougar has enter her room and he blames her for the damages, this sequence conveys the horror of the unknown entity in the room and the unfairness that Jesse faces after the cougar has ransacked her room and she has to pay for the damages but it is mostly about the unseen danger that envelops Jesse from the moment she decided to move Los Angeles.
Like most films by Nicholas Winding Refn Neon Demon is also a very divisive film, as it features gruesome scenes, surrealistic moments that are hard to decipher and a slow pace that will manage to irritate viewers who are not used to Refn’s cinematic style. To enjoy Neon Demon is to understand that it is a very experimental film, that it does not follow a very linear narrative but as it progresses it becomes more symbolic and visually more rich and violent with a very resonant depiction of real or manufactured beauty.
Rating: 4/5
Well, how do I start this? This film bored me and sickened me in equal measure – a very strange and diverse reaction that I confess I have never had before when film-watching.
There was nothing to like about the characters but a lot to dislike. This wasn’t helpful in keeping my interest.
The camera shots were very clever and, in my view, was really what the highlight of the film was and makes me wonder if the Director was aiming for plaudits for cinematography.
There could be no plaudits for the storyline, which was extremely slow and then grotesque. I am amazed I didn’t leave the cinema before the end of the film – it certainly crossed my mind more than once but I stayed for the duration as I really did wonder what it was all about, so stayed in the hope for some clarity.
Without wishing to “spoil” the film for anyone still to see it, I will refer just to the last morgue scene in the film and ask -“Why?” It was disgusting. How anyone could have felt this added anything positive to the film is badly mistaken. Viewers had already deduced that the character in question was very dark – we didn’t need to see her going to extremes/perversion to prove that.
All in all I was very disappointed with this film, as the reviews I read did not tally with the film that I saw. I would not recommend wasting time or money going to see this movie.
Rating: 1/5