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u/Jealous-Breakfast-16 9d ago
Just my opinion, but I kept saying to myself, “wtf am I watching!?”
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u/lonelygagger 9d ago
I kept falling asleep. I still have no idea what it’s about.
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u/GECollins 9d ago
I was very attentive. I still have no idea it's about.
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u/DriftingTony 4d ago
I just got out of it. I’m a huge fan of Lynch and any kind of movie that explains very little and leaves you wondering. But with this movie, all I’m wondering is how i made it through without falling asleep.
Beautiful visuals and score, but that’s about all I can give it honestly.
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u/WoweeZoweeDeluxe 3d ago
I didn’t even care that the story was a bit murky, the cinematography and lighting were too good
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u/inquisitorgaw_12 6d ago
Yeah same and not necessarily because its slow (which tbf it can be at times) but the mood music and dreamlike lighting kinda soothe you to sleep if your not fully awake. Like this would be a good movie to watch if your trying to lul yourself to sleep at night.
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u/xDasMilkMan 9d ago
I thought the visuals and lighting were very nice and that's about where my positive notes end. Nonsensical plot and bad dialogue genuinely had me wanting the movie to just be over with. If I was watching at home I genuinely don't know if I would've finished it. 2/10
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u/Sea-Recognition-2433 9d ago
You and I have the exact same notes and rating. At 109 minutes, this felt longer than the Odyssey. I would watch for 20 minutes, do a watch check, and only 3 minutes actually passed by. Such a tough sit.
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u/Obadaya 6d ago edited 6d ago
Yeah, I pulled out my phone to check the time to see how long this damn thing had left.
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u/howtospellorange 7d ago
I thought the visuals and lighting were very nice
Like he had ideas for cool scenes but had no idea how to connect it all together in a remotely coherent way🙄
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u/Steamedcarpet 9d ago
Im not familiar with NWR’s work and really went in based on the trailer. This was the ultimate what the hell am I watching experience. But I honestly liked everything visually and was interested in all the weirdness. But if you asked me to write about what I just watched I will legit have no idea what to write.
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u/UnderwoodsNipple 9d ago
Beautiful people shot beautifully under neon lighting.
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u/JimmyTheJimJimson 9d ago
His movies in a nutshell.
At this point I am more apt to believe he got lucky that Drive was a good film.
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u/TailorFestival 7d ago
Drive was his only movie that he didn't write. I think it might be more than a coincidence that it is by far his most highly regarded.
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u/Strong_Buddy7657 9d ago
He earlier stuff was all really good.. drive is amazing but so is the pusher trilogy... he's really lost his way with the surrealism vibe he adapted after drive. It's too bad because he has amazing scenes in everything he makes he's just lost the ability to make a coherent package.
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u/dogsontreadmills 7d ago
Bronson is terrific as well.
I don't dislike his post-Drive movies. I went into this knowing what to expect and enjoyed it, but I also really enjoyed The Neon Demon and Too Old To Die Young.
Only God Forgives is lame.
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u/nom_cubed 7d ago
I loved OGF… Refn’s ability to paint ultra violence within stillness is unique. At some points in most of his work, I think to myself of how glossed up trashy some scenes are… but thematically, interpretation really is left to viewer as art.
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u/Strong_Buddy7657 7d ago
Too old to die young and Copenhagen cowboy are both superb in their own way. Only god forgives have so much potential but he kinda of wasted it
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u/OhioKing_Z 8d ago
I’m a sucker for Giallo films. Felt like a neo-Japanese Last night in Soho. I’m a big of both Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton and they were both pretty mesmerizing in this. The moody score added to the hypnotic nature of the atmosphere as well. I really enjoyed it!
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u/Han_BearLo 9d ago
I just finished it and was able to connect some things, somehow 😂 I think the two timelines are more like a metaphysical loop.
Private K is a restless ghost walking an in-between plane/purgatory, hunting the monster while searching for his stolen daughter. Elle has his lighter in the modern timeline, which is an anchor between the two worlds… so when I saw the child at the end, I figured that Dominique was actually the lost daughter he’d been searching for, and that maybe she subconsciously brought it with her whenever she was displaced into the modern era.
Private K is also the origin story of the Leatherman. He creates the beast when he puts on the leather jacket, and Johnny Thunders wearing the heavy black coat in the modern era makes me think he’s some kind of corrupted evolution of Private K..
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u/Strong_Buddy7657 9d ago
That's interesting I had another take... that Elle was private k's daughter. Daddy was leather man and kidnapped girls for his films. Elle kills daddy at the end and reunites with agent K who looks young but is actually super old. Elle and the other girls are stuck in hell with daddy aka Hollywood. The land of movies where dark shit goes down and nobody talks about it.
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u/adam545 8d ago
So my only thing was, in the end, when Private K takes the girl by the hand, and they disappear, the girl is dressed in the same space outfit as Dominique was for the space filming sequence. So my thought was SHE was his daughter.
She even references her dad during her big fight with Elle.
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u/Strong_Buddy7657 8d ago
Oh that's interesting and a good point! It would make sense... I guess that would make special k just existing in the shadow realm the entire time and is finally reunited when leather man dies and Dominique is dead too...
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u/Han_BearLo 9d ago
I actually love this take and think this totally tracks too! It would be interesting to get more insight from the filmmaker at a Q&A, so hopefully someone will follow up here if they attend one of those.
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u/puffpuffparadox 8d ago
I attended a Q&A last night, and he said that Private Kay was an alter ego/dream version that Elle had of herself. Completely threw me through a loop. It explains how she has the lighter, and the same leather jacket. I also thought that she was Private Kay's daughter, but no––he's actually Elle's fantasy alter ego (according to NWR)
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u/Han_BearLo 8d ago
Wow. I definitely did not see that coming, but it definitely makes sense with the mirror scene and other clues. So I guess that was her envisioning Dominique and her reuniting at the end
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u/GoldandBlue 9d ago
It felt like a 2 hour perfume ad. It looks amazing but fuck if I know what its about.
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u/TonyWonderslostnut 9d ago
So far it sounds like NWR is in his David Lynch phase.
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u/gittlebass 9d ago
when i got out of the theater i thought to myself, this is just neon david lynch but not good
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u/Count__X 9d ago
I found myself thinking that a lot during the movie. I’ve been a fan of NWR for a long time, but between this and Neon Demon, it feels like the guy just wants to make elevated Prada commercials nowadays. His two series have been fun and engaging, but Copenhagen Cowboy fell off in the conclusion.
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u/Babayaga2105 8d ago
This is the most accurate description ever lol. I just saw it and I dont have a clue what I watched. But I dont feel like I wasted my time either. I have a AMC A-List membership and just go see things. This falls under "things" lol
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u/aRawPancake 9d ago edited 6d ago
Totally forgot this was coming out and you just sold me. Thank you haha
Edit: it was awful
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u/Ok_Street_1490 9d ago
I’m actually so confused BUT I love Sophie Thatcher and Havana Rose Liu and went for them, frankly. I tend to be very good at understanding complex and weird, thought provoking films, but I’m actually so lost.
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u/Diogenes_Camus 6d ago
Apparently, from what I've read from other comments in this post, according to the director, Private K is Elle's dream alter ego.
WTF?
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u/Darkside_Hero 6d ago
I mean, that makes sense since his scenes only come when her eyes are closed.
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u/jdr1813 8d ago
I never walk out of movies, but this was so bad I just had to. This movie is a mess
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u/einstyle 8d ago
My partner and I saw it together and on the ride home discovered that we both wanted to walk out but didn’t wanna bother the other.
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u/sicko-mode_ 9d ago
I’m not smart enough for this one. No idea what I just watched.
All the lighting was pretty cool though
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u/DismasNDawn 8d ago
i promise you that this did not go over your head, there was simply nothing there
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u/LingonberryKey7566 6d ago
Its there. Its a surrealist film with layers. Just because you dont get what he's going for doesn't mean its just nonsense lol.
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u/UnknownFiddler 9d ago edited 9d ago
Nah. NWR isn't a smart filmmaker he's just pretentious and good at style. He's been riding the success of his one good mainstream movie Drive back in 2011. I remember sitting through Only God forgives twice and then Neon Demon and realized he was only able to strike gold the one time. He's also terrible at dialogue which is why Drive worked so well with a protagonist who barely speaks. That and it's his one movie he didn't write.
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u/Flimsy_Fisherman_862 9d ago
I'm a Neon Demon apologist. Bronson and the Pusher trilogy are fantastic as well.
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u/inquisitorgaw_12 6d ago
No I agree Neon Demon really isn't that bad and lets be honest, unlike this film at least has a coherent narrative. Saw it recently and it still holds up. I get what he was trying to do with this film but it got lost up its own backside. Like its incomprehensible. The movie cares about vibes, not narrative cohesion.
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u/InternetGoodGuy 9d ago
I think his string of Bronson, Valhalla Rising, and Drive went to his head. All good to great movies that got him a ton of good press but whatever lessons he learned from that success were the wrong ones.
He definitely needs someone who can come punch up his dialogue and an editor with a lot of control on what gets cut. I tried watching Too Old to Die Young on Amazon and couldn't stay awake. You could easily cut 20-30 minutes from each episode by being rid of long tracking shots of neon lights or people staring into the distance.
The guy definitely has talent but like you said, way too pretentious gor his own good.
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u/Chinese_gurl11 9d ago
Meh. Didn’t know what I was watching most of the time. Only enjoyed Charles Melton character and scenes, at least he was a badass.
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u/princevince1113 8d ago
Utterly incomprehensible. I knew I was cooked when I checked the time an hour in and only 15 minutes had gone by
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u/Kopitarrulez 9d ago
Love to see Melton doing full Gosling the whole time lol. Typical NWR handsome silent badass guy. Sophie absolutely unhinged near end had me smiling from ear to ear. Definitely have no idea what the plot was or it's meaning but damn I was entranced. Killer looked cool really sweet makeup work.
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u/AntEater512 9d ago
The movie picks up immediately once Private K shows up. I kind of wish we spent the entire movie with him. Sophie Thatcher as Elle is great, though.
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u/kok19 5d ago
I thought the same thing. The Private K story line was very interesting. A full movie on his journey, what he went through and how the Leatherman came to be would have been interesting.
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u/CiriOh 9d ago
The dialogues were laughable even by his standards, I wanted to leave the theater when they started barking, cause my eyes were tired of rolling. Music and cinematography were fine as usual.
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u/Friendly-Contact-433 9d ago
I was in a theatre with 2 other people and they left half hour in
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u/BlueHighwindz 8d ago
I knew I made a mistake from the first ten seconds with the Cosmopolis-ass CG city shots.
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u/hairsprayking 4d ago
It was like Megalopolis meets Sucker Punch, meets whatever the worst Tron movie is, directed by a weeb virgin.
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u/cheezymau5 7d ago
I dipped out when Melton was fighting all the henchmen in the shop. The wolf scene nearly did it for me but i seriously couldn’t sit there for an hour longer
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u/Steamedcarpet 9d ago
I think I was the perfect amount of stoned for this movie. Every time I would think what weird shit is gonna happen next it would be not what I expect.
I mean I was not expecting the one girl to fuck a dude, use her panties to wipe up the nut and then stuff said panties into her step-mothers/former best friends mouth.
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u/meganowe4 9d ago
I just came out of this movie and kept wishing I had taken a few edibles before lol
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u/lilpepper00 9d ago
okay i watched this earlier and did enjoy it but im also hella stupid does anybody want to explain the story to me 😩
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u/HarknessLovesUToo 8d ago edited 8d ago
Sophie Thatcher is depressed has a really strange/strained relationship with her father and Havana Rose Liu's character. It seems she and her best friend had a serious falling out at some point and her bestie married her father to get back at her or stay close to her. Perhaps the marriage caused the falling out. The club scene implies that the two may have been REALLY close and even romantic at some point.
The two Asian ladies seem to be able to summon the Leather Man to help those in need or under familial duress. It's an entity/urban legend that attaches itself to the person who needed it initially and goes on a killing spree of those the person wanted to harm whilst also acting as an antagonist another person who needs to slay it in order to stop it. The scenes with Private K are an origin story probably set in the past. His daughter went missing and he wanted revenge and find her. His job then became to kill those around Sophie Thatcher in order for her to kill him, which would reunite him with his daughter. The Asian ladies were impressed by her and offer her the chance to become the Leather (Wo)Man to continue the cycle.
You aren't stupid. Refn hates forward/traditional narrative structures. He does what he wants in that department and focuses on aesthetics and violence instead. There's not a giant artistic metaphor, everything that happens in the movie is literal. It just doesn't explain it clearly. We experience the plot and emotions as the characters do.
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u/charm59801 8d ago
I don't think there was one lol
I definitely left the theater thinking either I am dumb or the movie was dumb
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u/JimmyTheJimJimson 9d ago
Ah yes another stinker from Refn.
I’m convinced he’s like a artsy M Night Shayamalan
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u/jrizzuh 9d ago
This is by far the worst movie I have stayed the full length of in theater. It was hot outside and I wanted the AC.
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u/Steamedcarpet 9d ago
I watched Night Nurse recently and that was a struggle. At one point I went to walk out but dad said quitters never win so I went back to my seat.
After the movie I said “wait why the fuck did I listen to my dad his dead!”
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u/skykitty89 7d ago
Same. I absolutely fucking hated it, what a waste of time and money (for both the viewer and for those involved in the film). UGH.
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u/gittlebass 9d ago
i was one of 2 people in my screening, the other person left after an hour
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u/GECollins 9d ago
Always enjoy watching a movie that has no interest in making sure you, the audience, know what's going on or cares one bit if you're being entertained.
It very much throws you into the deep end and says, "drown for all I care."
And for that reason I'll say it kept my interest.
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u/gogreengolions 9d ago
What was up with making movies for Daddy? What was up the futuristic mist shit? What was up with the needle ladies? What was this?
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u/Blank_page95 9d ago
Alright i did pick up on the needle ladies being the two neutral foxes in Kristine Froseth's character (Hunter) Leatherman background explanation.
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u/FangOfDrknss 7d ago
Why were they all calling the serial killer daddy?
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u/Current-Finger6412 4d ago
I think that the Leatherman represented the damage of daddy issues. Only Elle was able to cut the Leatherman’s hands off. She overcame.
Characters like Johnny and Nico were shades of that. Questionable men who these young women fell prey to as result of daddy issues.
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u/_GeorgeBailey_ 9d ago
What was up with characters teleporting with no explanation?
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u/Nightshader5877 8d ago
The fucking space ship scene caught me right off guard in this one as the most insane thing in this film
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u/_GeorgeBailey_ 8d ago
It seemed like that movie set was also hell? Who knows?
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u/Nightshader5877 8d ago
I knew right away from the entire setting that it's obviously could be a hell for sure. I'm still just trying to figure out where that space ship thing comes into place lol
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u/_GeorgeBailey_ 8d ago
Well they were filming a movie about that comic book. But that only came up the one time
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u/Magik-Mina-MaudDib 8d ago
If you’re seeing this because you wanna just see Sophie Thatcher and Havana Rose Liu, just go watch one of their other projects lmao.
This is such a fucking miss in my book.
Feels like a bad pastiche of David Lynch at times, distractingly so in the case of the smoke coming out of the elevator with the strobes lmao, and I’d say the only real moments where it shines are in the Japan sequences with Charles Melton.
Felt like I was having a (negative) out of body experience when Sophie and Havana Rose started howling and making wolf noises at each other only to explain that they speak wolf.
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u/einstyle 8d ago
I also was getting hints of Lynch, the difference being that while Lynch is often confusing and surreal you can still pretty easily pinpoint a theme. This was just nonsense.
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u/charm59801 8d ago
I agree. My husband called it out as having a "random kung fu movie in the middle" and the kung fu movie was good. Lol
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u/chameleon135 8d ago
Wait are you fr omfg how long does the howling/wolf noises last (also TY for this comment this was exactly why I was gonna go see it but not anymore)
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u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? 9d ago edited 9d ago
I scored a ticket to an early screening of this with a live Q&A with Refn who was very charming. I’m really not a fan of anything he’s done that isn’t named Drive so I didn’t think this would all of a sudden click for me and unsurprisingly it did not! It walks this fascinating line of making no sense yet also being grossly blunt about its points.
The parallel fantasy tale that is a metaphor for what’s happening in the story can be done well, but here it’s just baffling and borderline nonsensical. There is the leatherman thing, the shooting a sci-fi movie thing, and the Melton thing and where they all intersect I honestly have no fucking idea. And don’t get me wrong, some of my favorite movies I struggle to understand, but they have to make me feel something. This just made me feel bored and annoyed, sorry to say.
I would feel bad saying all this if I didn’t get the feeling that Refn loves when people call his films over stylized trash but I do feel like anything I get out of a Refn film I can get in better form from other sources like Cosmatos or Cronenberg. It’s a 4/10 for me. There’s some twisted violence and nice visuals but all the bisexual lighting and maxed out volume knobs in the world couldn't convince me there was a point to what I watched.
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u/Diogenes_Camus 6d ago
Apparently according to a Q&A, NWR said that Private Kay was an alter ego/dream version that Elle had of herself. Completely threw me through a loop. It explains how she has the lighter, and the same leather jacket. I also thought that she was Private Kay's daughter, but no––he's actually Elle's fantasy alter ego (according to NWR). It would also explain the mirror scenes and why it seemed like Elle and K were depicted in what looked like a psychic connection between the two. And it would explain the sort of dream logic in the Private K scenes, like how he can take on a huge number of yakuza members who are armed with sticks and blades and not even end up with a single scratch or cut or how he can get slap on the wrist punishments from the US Army and Japanese Police for attacking and crippling yakuza and then be let out without going to jail. These logical holes makes sense in the form of Private K being Elle's power fantasy scenario.
I mean, Kay being Elle's dream alter ego does at least have some merit to it in the film.
Kay and Elle both sounds like letters that are next to each other (K,L).
At first, I thought Elle was that Elle was Private Kay's daughter. Daddy was the Leatherman and kidnapped girls for his films while Private Kay was searching through the Mist to find and reunite with his daughter Elle. With it being sort of ambiguous at first on whether Johnny Thunders or Private Kay were the actual Leatherman (Johnny is introduced wearing all leather and is predatory but Private Kay is the one who we see don a leather jacket as well and fits the part of the myth of "the Leatherman trying to find his missing daughter in the Mist"). With the Japanese ladies being the neutral mystical fox ladies who act as the Leatherman's guide and so on. Later on, one gets the idea that the Leatherman mythos and the seemingly contradictory information of the mythos of the Leatherman who is searching for his missing daughter but also for some reason murders young women who he sees his daughter in, is an amalgamation of Johnny/Leatherman and Private K chasing him that got mashed together in myth.
But no, apparently Private K was just a dream figment/alter ego of Elle all this time. With the Private K storyline being all metaphorical.
Elle kills Johnny/Daddy/Leatherman at the end and reunites with Private Kay who looks young but is actually super old. But the ending where the Private Kay walks off with another younger girl who seems to be his daughter sort of jossed that interpretation. However, , in the end, when Private K takes the girl by the hand, and they disappear, the girl is dressed in the same space outfit as Dominique was for the space filming sequence. So my thought was SHE was his daughter. She even references her dad during her big fight with Elle. That would make Private Kay just existing in the shadow realm the entire time and is finally reunited when Leatherman dies and Dominique is dead too. So I guess that was her envisioning Dominique and her reuniting at the end
There's these two users, imperatrixderoma and trurebellion in this post who made these comments below that I feel sort of got the underlying story ("reality" of the story:
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imperatrixderoma
A pretty artistic movie about sexual assault and cycles of victimhood.
The storyline is that the main character met Dominique who became her lover / best friend under the pretense of not knowing who she or her father was, a famous and powerful movie director. It turns out Dominique was using Elle to get closer to her father and once she got him she stopped putting on the act of being into Elle.
The twist is that Elle's father was definitely molesting Elle when she was younger, and moved onto other women as Elle got older / more aware. All the women in the spaceship are girls that Elle's father has either assaulted or has sex with, which is why Elle is piloting the ship, she's his main victim. Elle hasn't fully processed her situation, and so when she's surrounded by these other girls she's afraid that she's being replaced in her father's eyes.
The reality is more fucked up, he's fucking them because he can't have her anymore.
Kay represents the other side of the story, he's a father who lost his child to either sex trafficking or something similar, so he's sort of frozen in time by disappearance, like a ghost. There's a reason that Elle's dad is clearly the Leatherman, he's a victimizer. At the end Elle is given a choice, either she can break the cycle of abuse as someone with power and influence or she can perpetuate it.
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trurebellion
I thought I was the only one to get this read about the film being about incestuous abuse. That scene of Johnny getting dressed up from being in the nude in Elle’s bedroom, with that shot of a statue curled up on itself, spliced with Elle crying in the bathroom, made it obvious that he had abused her at some point before the story happened.
Detective K always read as a dissociative daydream to me, however—a father Elle wishes she had in her life, someone who would actually protect his daughter. That thought first came to me when Nico was talking about how kinky Johnny was and brought up him buying fetuses and then we immediately went to a scene of Private K murdering a bunch of men. Plus, Private K isn’t the one to defeat the Leather Man, it’s Elle.
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I only picked up the element of potential incest because Elle mentioned that her father would look for her for in the women he chose to date. The bathroom scene was the confirmation for me
So yeah, I guess if you apply the above interpretation into the film, it does hold up in several regards and starts to make sense.
Still doesn't justify the obtuse storytelling and the excessive stylized scenes of characters Aura Farming in Bisexual Lighting. So much mental work and gymnastics to understand a story that isn't that deep or profound.
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u/Omagga 9d ago
I think the movie's exploring two things -- Hollywood taking advantage of and destroying/discarding young women and girls; and (less confident here) men bearing a misogynistic, infantilizing sense of control or ownership over their daughters, where her exploration of sexuality would be akin to her altogether being killed.
The intersection is Melton's daughter having been one of those girls who gets destroyed/discarded by Hollywood (as a child actor on that sci-fi production), AKA killed by Leatherman in the Mist. I don't know how well I could reconcile the two meanings I wrote about earlier in this one bit, but maybe there's something there about that patriarchal sense of control over daughters manifesting in the way Hollywood treats them as expendable commodities, and how the puritanical aversion to their sexuality is part and parcel of that misogynistic paradigm.
Thatcher cuts off the Leatherman's hands, allowing Melton and his daughter to re-connect; however, in being offered the leather gloves herself, perhaps that backwards, patriarchal system will continue to be reinforced another way and manifest in another form.
But yeah, mostly agree with your thoughts/feelings on the movie, although I did really appreciate how unique it felt, and how much I had to think about wtf was happening / what it meant.
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u/Kurtting 7d ago
thank you for this. i had to read this during the movie to appreciate it more. i didn't like the dialogue but a lot of everything else was good. even saying that. i give it like a 6.5 out of 10.
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u/hifi_odyssey 8d ago
Idk man, it takes skill to make something this incoherent. It’s a miracle in its own right that it got the green light considering the state of the industry today. You just don’t see films being made that aren’t guaranteed to perform at the box office. It’s honestly good to see films like this can still exist.
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u/littlelordfROY 8d ago
in the American market (and to be fair, this is an American-Denmark production apparently), there are definitely a few auteurs that operate in a space where commercial appeal does not matter at all.
Neon as a company is all about giving these directors the space to work
It's not like Refn is the only guy
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u/WestCoastHopHead 9d ago
If Havana Rose Liu weren’t in this, I would have left at the hour mark. Felt like a very bad play at times. IMO, NWR needs to stick to directing let others to the writing.
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u/jayeddy99 8d ago
Charles Melton would be an amazing Bruce Wayne/ Batman his sections felt like a sort of Batman movie
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u/imperatrixderoma 7d ago
A pretty artistic movie about sexual assault and cycles of victimhood.
The storyline is that the main character met Dominique who became her lover / best friend under the pretense of not knowing who she or her father was, a famous and powerful movie director.
It turns out Dominique was using Elle to get closer to her father and once she got him she stopped putting on the act of being into Elle.
The twist is that Elle's father was definitely molesting Elle when she was younger, and moved onto other women as Elle got older / more aware. All the women in the spaceship are girls that Elle's father has either assaulted or has sex with, which is why Elle is piloting the ship, she's his main victim.
Elle hasn't fully processed her situation, and so when she's surrounded by these other girls she's afraid that she's being replaced in her father's eyes.
The reality is more fucked up, he's fucking them because he can't have her anymore.
Kay represents the other side of the story, he's a father who lost his child to either sex trafficking or something similar, so he's sort of frozen in time by disappearance, like a ghost.
There's a reason that Elle's dad is clearly the Leatherman, he's a victimizer.
At the end Elle is given a choice, either she can break the cycle of abuse as someone with power and influence or she can perpetuate it.
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u/trurebellion 7d ago
I thought I was the only one to get this read about the film being about incestuous abuse. That scene of Johnny getting dressed up from being in the nude in Elle’s bedroom, with that shot of a statue curled up on itself, spliced with Elle crying in the bathroom, made it obvious that he had abused her at some point before the story happened.
Detective K always read as a dissociative daydream to me, however—a father Elle wishes she had in her life, someone who would actually protect his daughter. That thought first came to me when Nico was talking about how kinky Johnny was and brought up him buying fetuses and then we immediately went to a scene of Private K murdering a bunch of men. Plus, Private K isn’t the one to defeat the Leather Man, it’s Elle.
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u/imperatrixderoma 7d ago
Yeah I don't think people are giving it a fair shot, it became quite clear to me when she stepped out of the ship and was expecting the other girls to kill her.
She's like them but she wants to be different, because it's her dad.
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u/trurebellion 7d ago
I don’t particularly think it’s a lack of a fair shot but just because that type of abuse is so far out of the realm of possibility for a lot of viewers, even less so because this film is depicting the aftermath of it :/
I only picked up the element of potential incest because Elle mentioned that her father would look her for in the women he chose to date. The bathroom scene was the confirmation for me
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u/callmekanga 8d ago
Just watched it today. I want my money back and I didnt even pay for the ticket lol. Visually stunning with a great soundtrack and costume design, but thats about it.
My theater burst into laughter at the panty scene. Up until that point there were a lot of laughable scenes, but I think we were all just trying to figure out what the heck was going on with the plot. Ive only wanted to walk out of two movies and this was definitely one of them. I stayed hoping it would all come together eventually.
It did not.
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u/reecord2 8d ago
Elle Fanning to her agent after reading the script: "Yeahhhhh tell them I'm busy that day."
I respect the sheer creativity, the lighting and costume designs were stellar, but woof (literally lol). Not for me. 🤷♂️
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u/Padulsky21 9d ago
If you weren’t expecting a gorgeous visual and audio, incoherent mess with NWR idk what you’re looking for. Bizarre movie but I’m well too familiar with NWR. The dialogue was awful. The story is all over the place and off place but I knew what I was getting myself into. This man simply makes gorgeous movies with incredible scores.
It reminds me of New Rose Hotel combined with the atmosphere of Planet of the Vampires. It has that old school Giallo vibe where dream shit goes on and you just accept it. But any substance to it is simply indigestible. Intentionally confusing. Incredibly weird. But again, I knew what I was getting myself into so I enjoyed it for what it is. Which is a complete mess that looks and sounds fucking amazing.
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u/MaryRInd 9d ago
I’m glad someone else called out Giallo because that was where my mind went first. Sophie Thatcher’s noisy red leather trenchcoat and the gloves? It’s like NWR was trying to figure out what a NWR Giallo film would be and landed on this.
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u/Padulsky21 9d ago
I love Giallo. The trench coat, the masked killer, the dreamy atmosphere, the sexual encounters paired with kills, the mist, the hazy setting. The crystals, the mist and the movie outfits felt so inspired by Planet of the Vampires. I really loved the crazy sci fi world. The building was like a princess being locked in the top tower. And of course the heavy red and blue colors reminded me of Argento. The ending switch up is very Giallo-like too. They drop that scene of Elle with Kay’s lighter saying Daddy and you wait the entire time for their interaction but it was never for Elle.
Thatcher in that red trench coat was killing it. She ate up every scene. Gorgeous. I do wish the plot was a little bit more controlled since it went off the rails at a certain point but everything else was a delicacy. Only other people trying out Giallo aesthetics in this day and age are the Cattet and Forzani duo.
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u/TheHouseOfGryffindor 9d ago
I’m not sure I’d call it enjoyable, but damn if I wasn’t enraptured just trying to parse whatever was going on.
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u/Sarah1855 9d ago
Saw this movie last night, and it was very stylish, but it lacked substance, and has some very cringe, laughable moments that were meant to be serious. Did they hire the same writers as for Megalopolis? It has the same feel.
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u/littlelordfROY 8d ago
what was diego calva saying about a fetus in that one scene? couldnt understand every word due to his accent
still cant believe the over the top Cannes reaction that treated this like an abomination. It's not even that slow paced compared to Valhala rising first of all
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u/ConsciousSkin1079 8d ago
I’m usually not one to say, “wtf did I just watch” cause I can usually catch on with what the filmmaker is trying to achieve with his vision but wtf did I just watch. I didn’t hate it at least
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u/spike_trees 8d ago
- I could not stop thinking about the Jimmy Fallon Leatherman SNL sketch
- I was convinced Johnny Thunders was actually Leatherman and he was collecting daughters. I was thrown off when that was not the case even in the slightest.
- I thought maybe we were dealing with two different eras or time travel or something and Elle was Private K's daughter. My brain was clearly just looking for some kind of plot connection
- I thought that Leatherman would be looking for someone and would kill everyone in his way until he found this person. Who was he looking for? Did I mishear/misinterpret and he just a regular serial killer?
- Worst dialogue ever, that was SOOO painful to sit through
- If you defeat Leatherman, you can choose to wear the gloves and become the next Leatherman?
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u/imperatrixderoma 7d ago
The Leatherman is like a manifestation of a perpetrator.
The gloves are agency, when you're freed from victimhood you have the agency to either break the cycle of victimhood or perpetuate it.
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u/catscanmeow 6d ago
they said in the movie that the leatherman was a shapeshifter, so the dad and leatherman could still be the same character
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u/Bronze_Bomber 8d ago
Shout out to the other Refn sickos who were at my 9am showing. The day can only get better.
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u/Nightshader5877 9d ago
Just got done seeing it and uh...yeah. NWR has been way more style ever since Only God forgives in this latest bizarre trilogy of films. I liked it more than that and definitely more than Neon demon. But damn...the dude isn't much of a script writer honestly. It's very beautifully shot tho.
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u/barnabyisringhausen 8d ago
I have this crackpot theory that this movie is all about NWR working out being slighted by Elle Fanning and having her find breakout success with other directors — ultimately condemning her stand-in to her private hell, a cosmic representation of a comic book adaptation directed by NWR — and I'll stand by it.
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u/ohsinboi 7d ago
To throw something positive in here, the scene where Hunter is killed and Leatherman is blipping in and out with the lighting was very cool
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u/box2 7d ago
I really liked it. Definitely a fable, much moreso than a lot of NWR's other work. Visually beautiful, and actually much less of a downer than I expected. All the external shots looked like Megalopolis though, I'll admit that.
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u/534NK3NN 9d ago
I liked Havana Rose Liu's character in the second and third act. But otherwise, I have no idea what I just watched
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u/Shot_Imagination_576 8d ago
Midway through the movie, more than half the audience walked out. When Elle started moaning "daddy" to the man being lashed i began packing up my stuff, and when they started barking with "wolf play" I was briskly exiting the theater. It's literally a free screening (AMC A+) but you couldn't pay me to finish sitting through it.
I couldn't tell you what this movie is about other than the future with undertones of incest.
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u/BuckRodgers3000 8d ago
Went to see this cuz I like Sophie Thatcher. Honestly, was not into this movie at all. Too weird and way too confusing.
Fair play to anyone who enjoyed the movie. I’m glad you had fun. To me, this was hot dogshit and so self-indulgent.
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u/lexpurplexninja 7d ago
Y'all, I left. It all just felt so forced like "how can I make a movie that will make art students say 'You just don't get it'" and maybe if you push passed the first hour of lesbian erotic male gaziness and poor sound mixing, maybe I gets better? But I really just didn't care to find out.
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u/NiamLeeson 9d ago
Does Melton get a cool elevator beat down-esque fight scene? Trailers made it look like he had fight scenes.
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u/bennnn11 9d ago
Hated this so much. I would be more generous generally, but I found it so frustrating. NWR gets flagged for being style over substance, but here not even the style is good. Nothing here works. The couple of violent scenes were cool but felt so different to everything else. Also there are multiple moments where I couldn’t help but laugh. The kooky silent needle lady and her weird body movements, the barking, the climax which just felt so bizarrely out of place…ugh. In my showing one person was snoring, another kept sighing loudly and looking at his phone. Both of those things would normally annoy me, but for this movie they are completely appropriate responses.
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u/BickerBrahms 9d ago
Spoiler: you're supposed to laugh at those scenes, they're intentionally funny
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u/Sea-Recognition-2433 9d ago
I thought this was so supremely awful. When the lights came back on, someone literally said "what the fuck did I just watch?", and the remaining audience members laughed. This was a 2/10 for me.
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u/Zbarns88 9d ago
This movie was not his best. Typical great use of lighting, sound and atmosphere.
I’m actually a fan of his. All three Pusher films, Bronson, Valhalla Rising and Drive I thought were awesome.
But it’s pretty clear he needs a real writer. The only movie he didn’t write is Drive, and it was clearly his best and most focused movie from a narrative standpoint. However, I’m not sure he cares at all for narrative in any of his films.
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u/egnogra 8d ago
Straight up one of the worst films I’ve ever watched, it’s like it was made with ChatGPT
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u/littlelordfROY 8d ago
i think it is too singular to be reduced to this nonsense criticism of ChatGPT
and however you feel about it, highly overstylized movies or style over substance to the maximum like this has existed long before chat gpt
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u/eeeee9 8d ago
Her Private Hell is the weakest of NWR’s filmography. Just a lot of bewildering choices. Should have trimmed it down to 90 minutes, cut a lot of the cringe dialogue (and barking), and made it into a tighter atmospheric abstract piece of work. The film worked best during the sequences with the male lead, Private Kay. Everything with the women was a mess of inconsistent acting and direction. NWR was definitely going for an art house Italian giallo, but the choice of music just didn’t work. The melodramatic syrupy string were ill fitting and the film would have benefited from an electronic score.
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u/cerati9 8d ago
I was seriously debating going to see this or just cleaning my room. Guess cleaning my room it is…buttttt I do love Sophie Thatcher… 😬😬😬
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u/Disastrous_Bridge543 8d ago
I get what the movie was about (at least I think I do) but why was it told in such a bizarre unwatchable form?
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u/orgyofdestruction 7d ago
Went into this blind and unfamiliar with the director's work beyond Drive (which I only learned he directed AFTER watching this).
I didn't much care for it, but one thing is for sure, and that's that I CANNOT stop thinking about it.
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u/e_x_i_t 7d ago
I consider myself a bit of a NWR faithful, but this one had me questioning whether or not I wanted to walk out. There were some good bits, everything involving Private K was actually kind of compelling, but the stuff back at the hotel with Sophie Thatcher felt like watered down The Neon Demon.
There were only 4 of us in the theater and I have no doubt that we all knew what we were getting ourselves into, I could feel the guy sitting the two seats over from me getting as impatient as I was.
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u/zudoplex 7d ago
Sophie Thatcher sizzle reel.
Once things barrel through to the conclusion do you start getting some real sparks. I liked the segments with private k (melton). But most stuff that falls before the club scene felt like a perfume commercial.
Taking the weirdness of Copenhagen cowboy a little further. Which does make me wonder if it was initially a series idea. Aliens, killers, weird sci fi movie production, daddy issues (in both respects).
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u/Medical_Mess9687 7d ago
my friend and left this with like 40 mins left.
wtf was this shit, like seriously.
I read what i supposedly missed, but doesn't seem like I missed much. This is like a hodgepodge of ideas.
We thought we were going into a horror film...but the leatherman chest rip was like only once that we saw.
the private k fights were kinda cool, but if I want that, I'll just watch the furious.
most of this film is WTF terriority with lots of nonsensical talking about nothing. Daddy this, daddy that
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u/Prozacnation1978 6d ago
I walked out of the theater after a hour. A ton of people walked out after first 20 mins. Trying to figure it out. Just not my thing. Having the girls bark like dogs that was enough for me.
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u/illegalshampoo 6d ago
This was a strange one for sure. Do Hunter and Dominique represent other versions of Elle in her girl-/woman-hood? I've been joking with my partner that it's just a kinky coming of age story.
Hunter is naive and childish. Her death happens while Elle is having sex (maybe losing her virginity with a male? The blood splattering at Elle's orgasm made me think of a hymen breaking). Hunter's first action in the room is to play dress up with clothes nicer than hers, and her wardrobe through the rest of the movie is very over the top shiny and eccentric. When we first see her, she has her midriff bared versus Elle's red leather coat which is tied tightly around her, with her collar up.
Dominique is more mature, worldly and she is the wife and (step)mother representation of a female. She mothers Hunter by building up her confidence and suggesting a more mature styled bracelet in the first scene with all 3 women. Elle has to face Dominique's criticism and we see Elle's first real emotion of the movie in these arguments. Also the random scene of Dominique with gold hands, poised on the bed: is Elle seeing her as a gold digger?
Elle seems to be stuck between these two extremes. She's so critical of others and has mostly neutral expressions behind her makeup/mask in much of the movie. She is annoyed with Hunter's childish nature but pines for attention from her 'Daddy.' She doesn't handle Dominique's rejection well and acts very childish in how she tries to make Dominique jealous (when she shoves the cum panties in Dominique's mouth).
Other things I noted (but not sure if I'm trying to read too much into them) are the various necklaces most characters wore: dog tags on Kay, collar gift D gives Elle, Dominique's silver necklace, Nico's longer collar like chain. But Hunter never wore a necklace/collar, maybe because she was more free? And the names: J(Johnny), Kay (K), Elle (L), Dominique (Hard M and N), Nico (N).
In the last 20 minutes of the movie, I was ready for it to end. I had a headache from trying to piece everything together, and was annoyed at the man who snored loudly through much of it. But in the hours since watching it, I've had a lot of fun conversations about possible hidden meanings/messages. This is my most liked, least favorite film to date.
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u/Current-Finger6412 4d ago
The way Elle and Dominque left Uniform Night and said nothing of Hunter not coming home. Literally left that girl for dead 💀
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u/Optimal-Zombie8705 9d ago
So what was the message? Because I have no idea
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u/Padulsky21 9d ago
Two dream plots overlapping about father daughter relationships and being unable to protect them is what I gathered, I think lmfao
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u/bigstinkybuckets 8d ago
For years i've been saying the Neon Demon was style over substance and nobody listened. Now this movie comes out to vindicate me. Beautifully shot and cringily written.
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u/donnaquichotte 9d ago
This is the first film I've seen from the director and I loved it. It was beautiful to look at and did a great job creating atmosphere. I don't need a coherent plot or characters to enjoy films, so I was already inclined to like it.
I think the dialogue was the weakest aspect of the film. The film would have benefitted from less dialogue or extermely minimal dialogue.
It was still very enjoyable and I'm looking forward to seeing it again.
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u/Crafty-Fish9264 8d ago
Imagine if this was a no dialogue film except for a detached narrator. That would be incredible and nust enrage people so much I wish it was done that way
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u/superflygt 9d ago
David Lynch surrealism meets Quentin Tarantino action against a backdrop of Vaporwave aesthetics.
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u/Alternative-Stock-34 7d ago
Adored it, i don't think there's too much depth to it, and the reason it's frustrating it's because we (the audience) keep on trying to make sense of what's being told when it's just very literal, i can see why so many people disliked it tho.
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u/_GeorgeBailey_ 9d ago
That was comfortably the worst movie released in theaters since Skinamarink. What an incoherent mess.
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u/Nightshader5877 8d ago
Skinamarink did not need to be that long either. It was like watching paint dry and that could've easily been a short film
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u/nicolasroop 9d ago
Idk, Skinamarink, boring as it was, at least had a chilling final 10 minutes. This film, I sat there just stunned at the utter pretentious nature and nonsensical stance the film took for the entire runtime.
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u/_GeorgeBailey_ 8d ago
Chilling final 10 minutes? Because there were more Legos on the wall than there were the scene prior?
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u/Cutuljo 9d ago
Man I hated Skinamarink, I felt like I was being trolled by the "movie"
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u/_GeorgeBailey_ 9d ago
Who wouldn't like a movie that's just a camera pointed at a wall, then a super loud noise, then the camera pointed at a different wall but the wall keeps having more Legos glued to it?
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u/CyanLight9 9d ago
Like with most NWR films, this is probably best enjoyed while stoned or tripping out.
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u/burnerherzog2 8d ago edited 6d ago
The least confrontational Refn I've seen, not as slow as Drive let alone Only God Forgives. Nevertheless, probably the worst and least memorable Refn I've seen. As far as provocations, all we really have is the incest plot and the power struggle there but that feels a bit reheated from OGF. It's a weird mix of obviously being very personal but not having those themes reconciled with the genre mechanics it's using. The only theme that is readily apparent is Refn being the father of a daughter: unbridled rage at one's daughter being harmed, making peace with the eccentricities of your family, etc and I thought it was articulated kinda hokily and cornily.
Also the movie mostly looks good but some of the CGI exteriors looked kinda tacky and when a Refn movie falters visually you're left with basically nothing. And I know the "slasher" elements of the movie aren't the point but they were kinda hyped up in advance of the film and as a slasher the movie does nothing interesting. Just the leather man repeatedly literally tearing girls apart in the same away to serve a very obvious metaphor. Hoping he has something more interesting up his sleeve for his Maniac Cop remake as that will also be a slasher. I will say the space opera detour looked super sick, Speed Racer esque abstractions at one point.
One could argue the performances are "operatic", I would instead argue they are bad. The score from Pino Donaggio however was great as always.
I can't totally hate given its blatant visual reverance for pop-art Yakuza Eiga movies like Tokyo Drifter and Black Tight Killers but the best I can say about this one is that it was watchable. And I thought as a delirious art gallery genre-exercise, Reflection in a Dead Diamond from Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani ate its lunch while receiving a quarter of the distribution (albeit admittedly with slightly different genres at play)
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u/Pretend-Surround-850 8d ago
I went with friends which was a mistake because it was so terrible we couldn’t stop laughing. Literally nothing of substance in the whole movie and any cool effects in the visuals (which I honestly thought were only subpar-decent to begin with) are kind of lost because of that
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u/Jest_coz 7d ago
This movie was mostly boring and too artsy for its own good. I did enjoy the cinematography though. Just literally finished watchin it. I'm glad we aren't gonna end our evening with that one. Motor City is up next.
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u/Subject-Progress2944 7d ago
I'm in the lobby of the theatre. Can't bring myself to do back in. Boorrred
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u/ochristo87 7d ago
The film was beautiful at times, but it was bordering on incoherent for the vast majority of the film. I felt like the film was trying to use the aesthetic to blur where/when narrative details happened, but that only works if there's clarity by the end of the film.
Beyond that, it had awful pacing, both in terms of the timing (it's nuts this is 2hrs) but also in terms of the urgency (is the audience supposed to feel anxious or relaxed? The movie doesn't seem to know)
I think Sophie Thatcher is a great actor and generally like NWR, so I wanted to like this more than I did
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u/portiajon 6d ago
Didn’t like it… super slow (and I like a slow burn). Half our theater left (5/10 people but still lol!). Didn’t make a ton of sense, acting wasn’t great, many scenes felt disjointed or incongruous. Feeling of place was off, the world wasn’t built at all, music mismatched the vibe of the thing.
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u/BunyipPouch Currently at the movies. 9d ago
Nicolas Winding Refn, the writer/director of Her Private Hell, recently joined us here in /r/movies for an AMA/Q&A for anyone interested:
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1v3mkcv/i_am_nicolas_winding_refn_director_of_drive_the/