Wednesday Review: The Neon Demon

Contrary to a lot of other critics, The Neon Demon is a film I recommend. I enjoyed pretty much every moment of it. It’s an experience I can’t imagine will be for everyone, but if you like art house horror films, this is probably for you.

The film deals with the cut-throat world of modeling. A young woman named Jesse goes to LA to try to become a model, and immediately finds herself the object of lust from everyone she meets. This puts her in a position of great power, while simultaneously making her a vulnerable target to those around her. Saying more than that would give too much away, and this is a movie you need to see for yourself.

The problem with discussing it is that, even talking in broad terms, the movie is open to a lot of interpretation. I’d kind of like to go through the entire movie scene-by-scene to discuss my thoughts, but obviously I won’t be able to do that, even for my eventually regular review. Furthermore, I imagine that pretty much any thoughts I put forward about the movie run the possibility of being countered with “that’s no what it’s about!”

To me, at least, this film was about contradiction. It borrowed visual and auditory cues to tell the audience what we should be feeling, even as the story playing out inspired quite different emotions. It used the periods of long silence to project hopelessness, even as our protagonist was full of hope and strength. It used bizarre, surrealist imagery that would normally imply a protagonist is mentally ill, without giving us any real indication that our protagonist is mentally ill. Indeed, there are some events that couldn’t possibly be her perspective, but are still just as surreal.

Elle Fanning gives us a truly great performance. No, she’s not the beautiful Goddess that the film makes her out to be, I’m fairly certain that’s just more of the contradictions, but she manages to portray a role that falls somewhere strangely between the innocent and the vamp. She occupies a place in the Madonna/Whore dichotomy I’ve never really seen filled before, and she does it well.

By the time this finally goes up (I’m writing it prior to my viewing of either Independence Day: Resurgence or The Purge: Election Year) it’s likely that the theatre count will have already dropped quite substantially for this movie, but if you can see it in theatres do so. If not, catch it on streaming. If it’s the kind of movie you like, you won’t regret it.