The Neon Demon

”Beauty isn't everything. It's the only thing.” Beautiful opening and end credits, largely thanks to Cliff Martinez, who looks like he might become one of the greatest film composers of the future. But that’s where the enthusiasm ends. It would be a pity if we stopped looking forward to Refn’s movies and were instead only curious about them. It seems like that is what he tried to achieve here, forgetting that he earned his biggest success (not just in Cannes) thanks to a story with heart (Drive), elevated by his unique style of directing, not by that style alone. The Neon Demon is a simple film with a clear message. There is no puzzle arousing exciting intellectual debates like in Only God Forgives. In its simplicity and lack of surprising elements, the film replaces the possibility of getting emotionally involved in the story with purely visual storytelling, which looks attractive but leaves the viewer unmoved. But I guess you should see this, at least because of the slobbering over a corpse we’ve never seen in an A-movie before. [Cannes] (20.05.2016)

A non-mainstream, visually captivating, hypnotically immersive experience for those who can appreciate Nicolas Winding Refn's extraordinary visual sensibilities. But Refn is also explicitly provocative, completely unnecessarily so, and I could really do without a few scenes (sex in the morgue, yuck!). So when I add up the pros and cons, Refn ends up with a draw, but the kid has talent for more, much more. That's probably how Jaromil Jireš would shoot it when he was making Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, he would be a bit of a pervert and permanently on drugs. (06.10.2016)

Refn is one of those directors that I always wished would make a horror film. The announcement of Neon Demon fulfilled one of my dreams as a cinemagoer and the expectations couldn’t have been higher. After the responses from the première in Cannes, I still believed the film will grip and captivate me instead of sending me to the other side of the fence, with the disgusted and annoyed viewers. But in the end it was worse – it was just meh! Boring. It didn’t arouse any emotions, positive or negative. Audiovisually, it’s beautifully empty. (12.09.2016)

After I watched this movie, I’ve got the feeling that Nicolas Winding Refn is drowning in his own filmmaking utopias. I get that the Neon Demon has a clear premise about modelling, but I don’t get the artistic pathos they’re using to get to the point. Sure, many of the scenes are very interesting and very pleasing to the eye, but as a whole, I feel like the movie’s just a concurrence of different scenes that don’t make much sense. The director’s lucky that he can choose the right music to his video. I fell for it with Drive, but it was a bit harder this time. (22.11.2016)

Pubertal provocation. Refn was able to show the depth of the surface in such a way that a similar emptied mess full of dull script clichés could hardly upset a person. In addition, NRW directs poorly this time. Wooden dialogues, clip sequences that every little talented advertising director can handle, whilst the great Elle and Cliff Martinez's electro-arpeggio take care of all the dynamics. I was expecting hypnosis, but this is a sedative. [Cannes 2016] (20.05.2016)

Spoiled pretentiousness with two hours of running time and two twists. Cheaply provocative, grandly announcing something that will never come, and most importantly – completely unnecessary. The attempt to approach the incomprehensible spectacles of David Lynch is too shallow and self-absorbed. I understand that all the colors, wordless minutes, and repulsive scenes have metaphors that Nicolas Winding Refn enjoys talking about, but at their core, they are all so disgustingly trivial that they cannot even touch a clever or sophisticated effect. I was looking forward to more Danish-Hollywood hypnotism because I love Drive, and just narrowly missed Only God Forgives. But the main character's vacant stares don't work here because they have no narrative foundation to draw from, and the supporting monsters in this case are more like screenplay flaws. Nicolas just lost even the most patient of us. (25.09.2016)

Nicolas Refn is the perfect director for shooting spectacular spectacles because he can cleverly bombard the viewer with attractive sensations. His talent would be greatly utilized in shooting advertisements and music videos, as well as certain genres of films. He could easily handle refined eroticism without a blink of an eye - if, however, he didn't want to convince the viewer, and most likely himself as well, that he is destined for the world of great art. He therefore chooses inadequate film resources for his goals, discovering banal, universally accessible truths and attempting to camouflage depth where it tramples in the quagmire. It's a shame because with his reputation he should have no problem persuading leading character actresses to undress in the interest of the Muses. However, in this affected, elongated pose, Refn becomes annoying. I will give him 30% for the participating ladies, and he should be glad that I am feeling sympathetic and that I'm squinting my eyes at this desperation until it hurts. (04.03.2021)

An audio-visual feast with fantastic acting performances (an excellent Desmond Harrington). The inner storyline is quite interesting, but overall the story lacks dynamism. As always, Winding Refn is in no hurry, but unfortunately the world of modeling offers no excuse for action, which occasionally helped Drive forward a little (also in places in Only God Forgives), the lesson is fairly simple, bizarre, but still clear, but it’s difficult to sum up the entire movie in a single intellectual exercise about the significance of individual scenes. The main problem, apart from the traditional remoteness, was the length. And so you must see the movie if only for the corpse licker and the visually refined composition of images. You’ll have to battle against viewer fatigue, because the Neon Demon has no soul. (25.09.2016)

It's as terribly empty, resigned, and exhausted as you would expect from the brief. Once again it's a photo-novel, once again everything there merely serves the purpose of setting the scene, only unlike the previous Only God Forgives, this one is still horribly unoriginal. A thousand well-worn allusions to the lifelessness of top modeling only generate pretty shots without context and such a desperately effort at controversy that I winced even when Jena Malone was getting it on with a corpse. Think! And it’s a pity, because I want to watch an android in makeup vomit up an eyeball. Because Refn should take a cue from Drive and work on planting his style in a genre world where both can blossom and enrich each other. As it is, he'll only get derisive giggles from the cinema during the stilted dialogue and unsuccessful, overwrought spiritualism. How aptly the film is described by a scene in which an artificial model, remade with thousands of operations, proudly boasts that her plastic surgeon calls her the "bionic woman", whereupon she receives the disgusted response "And that's supposed to be a compliment?" (23.09.2016)

I thought this was going to be a cinematic experience, but it's really just boring as hell. I almost had the feeling that the finale was just a beginner's attempt to shock as much as possible. And perhaps it worked a little because that suffocation can really affect a person. Very well acted. But otherwise, just disappointment from a boringly predictable, albeit intense, story that tries to be different in form. (11.10.2016)

What can never be denied is Refn's hypnotic style. Despite the very cheesy "neon demon" story, Refn stuns with creativity and proves once again that he is a truly exceptional filmmaker in visual terms. But at the same time, I feel that from film to film he keeps getting farther away from the mainstream viewer. I already had significant reservations about his previous "Asian detour" and this is no different. Perhaps my biggest regret (because I genuinely like Refn's style) is that I found myself a few times when all the lights, electro music, and hypnotic atmosphere just seemed like annoying and repetitive show. If anyone can be said to be wasting his undeniable talent on the creation of soulless weirdness, it's Refn – at least as far as his last two films are concerned. But Elle Fanning is gorgeous, convincing, and perhaps a little too distinctive in this gray of mediocre bizarro. (24.07.2018)

Visually and musically quite well done, but that's probably where it ends. At the beginning, it developed quite interestingly, but the rest (especially the last half-hour) deserves to be thrown away. I'm wondering if my two stars are too favorable a rating... (10.04.2020)