Vox Lux

This film suffers from the same kind of poor choices which would cause someone to, say, make a 9/11 disco musical. It wields an enormous subject and chooses to focus on the most irrelevant aspects of any reaction to that subject.

It doesn't really matter what you want to say - the bizarre, unresolved context for the setup feels faintly obscene and eventually bankrupt. If the point of the film is to illustrate the shallowness of reactions to terror and violence, then it failed to say that. Instead, it looks more like a statement about the parallels between self-expression, terrorism, self-obsession, or losing your identity to celebrity, or something... By the end of the film I was deeply annoyed.

Hats-off the all of the professionals who clearly know how to make an impressive film here. But this story however, is a mess of intensity looking for a point. I believe that it fails eventually because of the indigestible premise.

You will think Vox Lux would be about the perils of pop music. It starts off with a horrifying school shooting.

13 year old Celeste Montgomery (Raffey Cassidy) survives but is shot in the neck. At an event held to remember the victims, Celeste sings a song that she co-wrote with her older sister Ellie. It becomes a hit and Celeste gets picked up by a pop manager as she encounters instant fame.

The second part of the film concentrates on the adult Celeste (Natalie Portman) in 2017. She is a jaded unhinged pop diva. Cynical and hard as nails who has encountered booze, drugs and infamy. Celeste actually lost her vision in one eye while drinking cleaning fluids. She was involved in a multi million dollar lawsuit as she ran over a man and then was racially abusive towards him.

Celeste is about to start a tour to promote her new album. Her daughter Albertine (Raffey Cassidy) who has been raised by Ellie has recently lost her virginity. Celeste becomes unsteady and incoherent with booze, her daughter's sexual experience and a terrorist attack in Croatia which might be linked to her music. At one point it looks like Celeste is in no fit state to perform at the concert.

Vox Lux is deliberately episodic in structure and never joins up properly. The caustic narration by Willem Dafoe paints the movie as a warning of the corrosive effects of stardom. Celeste has long ceased to be a real person. The ending at a pop concert feels strangely muted, sudden and unsatisfying. Portman excels as Celeste just as Cassidy who plays dual roles but the film has nothing new to say.

I waited nearly 4 days to write this review/reaction because I genuinely wasn't sure how I felt after seeing Vox Lux. I'm not the first one to say this but it's quite the pairing with A Star is Born for what could be the best double feature of 2018, with both portraying such a vastly different take on rise to stardom. Much like other 2018 films Hereditary and 22 July, there are a few scenes in Vox Lux that I will never forget in that they are some of the most haunting and terrifying sequences I have ever seen on film. However, a film like 22 July had an easier plot to follow and a much more direct narrative, whereas Vox Lux is a dark interpretation of fame, and an interpretation that doesn't give the clearest clues as to how your supposed to feel after viewing. The performances are extraordinary, including yet another star-making turn from Raffey Cassidy and expectedly great turns from Jude Law and of course, Natalie Portman. Even if I'm not totally sure on how I feel about this film, I know that I want more films to be this bold and daring.

7.4/10

The subject matter and overall meaning behind this story is great; a girl who is involved in a terrible, topical tragedy and finds unexpected fame as a result. It's a wonderful story to examine and discuss fame, pop culture, etc, but unfortunately the overall presentation of this idea falls flat.

The performances were strong, especially and expectedly from Natalie Portman (although I don't agree with casting the same actor for multiple parts). That's kind of where the positives stop. The inconsistent pacing and 'throw everything at the wall and see what sticks' mentality made engaging in the movie difficult. One could argue that the hectic nature of the film is representative of Celeste's thought process, but the execution seemed unintentional and rather unnecessary at times.

I wanted to love this film, and I give kudos to Brady Corbet for exploring this story, but I feel it had a lot to say and ended up not saying much.

The subject is intriguing: an exploration of the current age, focused on artificial fame and mass shootings. When I heard about the basic plot of the film, I thought it would be the counterpart for A Star is Born and therefore I was expecting quite a different story. But no, the occasional emotional moments are blown apart by the unnecessary and overly cerebral narration, the plot goes all over the place, the split in four acts only shows how pretentious the whole thing is while it is basically saying nothing. And the ending? Having to watch Portman sing several pop songs was painful. Not because of her, but because of the awful music.

The thing is, Natalie Portman is fantastic! She portrays her character perfectly. Unfortunately, that's the only good (and short) part of the film. The young actress first gives me great hope, then she's replaced, Willem Dafoe's narrator is superfluous at best and Jude Law was wasted on his role. In the end it just feels like someone tried to do something very deep and intelligent without actually using their brain.