It’s been 10 years since Nicolas Winding Refn made a feature film – his last, The Neon Demon, played In Competition at Cannes in 2016, where its heady mix of high fashion horror divided audiences. A decade has passed but Refn’s directorial instincts remain the same – his giallo-inspired Her Private Hell has been causing quite the stir on the Croisette, where it premiered Out of Competition, announcing the filmmaker’s return to features following his TV stint with Too Old To Die Young and Copenhagen Cowboy.
There are certain similarities between The Neon Demon and Her Private Hell – Sophie Thatcher, who plays a young actress named Elle, bears a physical resemblance to Elle Fanning, and it wouldn’t be a Refn film without his signature swaths of pink and blue neon. She’s starring in a sci-fi film at her father Johnny Thunders’ (Dougray Scott) behest, alongside her stepmother Dominique (Havana Rose Liu) and newly-arrived ingénue Hunter (Kristine Froseth). Meanwhile, a serial killer called Leather Man stalks the young women of the city, and American GI Private Kay (Charles Melton) searches for his missing daughter. So far, so Refn – but unfortunately an intriguing prospect doesn’t translate to an intriguing film.
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Refn has always been open about his reverence for Italian horror, tripling down here by hiring the legendary Pino Donaggio for the Her Private Hell score. His atmospheric and dramatic strings contrast from the misty, sparse rip-off of Tokyo’s Kabukicho district, complete with anonymous Yakuza goons and a woman who runs a store that sells frilly children’s clothes and dolls. The filmmaker has never been short on style, but there’s something watered down about Her Private Hell’s aesthetics, as though Refn’s filmography has been fed through an algorithm and spat out in a generic paste, and the use of Japanese iconography feels particularly lazy and stereotypical, something that might have passed muster in the exploitation films Refn has reverence for but feels outdated in the preset day.
The laconic pace of the film doesn’t help either – Thatcher, Liu and Froseth speak as though they’re on muscle relaxants, and there’s never much sense of urgency despite the serial killer noodling around ripping bodies in two with his diamond-encrusted gloves. It’s difficult to say if Thatcher and Liu are miscast or if their roles are simply poorly written (it might be both) as they have little to do than breathily repeat “Daddy!” over and over, but Charles Melton is easily the stand-out, particularly in a couple of fight scenes which provide a welcome energy boost.
While it’s heartening that after a decade away from features, Refn seems perfectly happy to do his own thing, it’s frustrating that he seems completely disinterested in progressing his point of view or levelling up his style. This is a pale imitation of what we know he’s capable of that feels more like proof of concept than polished homecoming.