Vox Lux (2018)
Directed by Brady Corbet
In 1999, teenage sisters Celeste and Eleanor survive a seismic, violent tragedy. The sisters compose and perform a song about their experience, making something lovely and cathartic out of catastrophe — while also catapulting Celeste to stardom. By 2017, the now 31-year-old Celeste is mother to a teenage daughter of her own and struggling to navigate a career fraught with scandals when another act of terrifying violence demands her attention.
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What critics say influenced Vox Lux
Vox Lux reminds one of Nicolas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon.
It’s the sort of movie, like “mother!” or “The Neon Demon” or “Suspiria” before it, that is guaranteed to repel just as many (if not more) as it draws in.
Here, Portman channels what seemed, at first, to be the style of Lorraine Bracco, or maybe that of Cyndi Lauper; but when I heard one particular line of dialogue (in which Celeste tells Ellie, “You look like a retard”), the comparison leaped out: intentionally or not, Portman’s performance resembles that of Margot Robbie in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Portman’s performance is, in many ways, incredibly daring; at times her unrelieved nastiness recalls Jennifer Jason Leigh in “The Hateful Eight.”
Like the protagonist of Eastwood's Gran Torino (which was also scripted by Schenk), Earl is stubborn, casually bigoted, and hoping to make up for a lifetime of regrets.