Vox Lux (2018)

It took me a year to see this film. I remember wondering why a film with such a high profile cast with "generally favorable" reviews would completely miss getting a wide release, or even a prestige release. In this age of Streaming services picking up films I didn't understand why it didn't even get that platform. It played in very few theatres and west directly to "on-demand." It fell off my radar and I didn't come back around to it for quite some time.

Now that I have seen it I understand a bit better. Vox Lux is a difficult film. It unabashedly wants to be challenging. Up and coming director Brady Corbet is known for picking less mainstream pieces (his previous film being an adaptation of a Sartre story) and he approaches Vox Lux in a way that minimizes its commercial potential. The story of the rise of a pop star from tragedy could have been played for Star is Born mainstream appeal but instead is dark, almost nihilist dark. The pop songs aren't catchy. The characters are not in the slightest sympathetic. The glitter and glamour is all tarnished and dull. The violence is up close and personal. One doesn't get any warm and fuzzy vibes from Vox Lux.

But that wouldn't be the point of this film anyway. This is a hard look at the exploitive ways celebrity is crafted, our obsessions with violence and shallowness, and how we pass these on to our children. It is a pessimistic film, a film that wants us to reflect on difficult things. And it does that with a strong cast giving good performances, it does that through presenting itself in a documentary style that keeps us someone arms length from the subjects, it does that without offering us a hopeful or even cathartic ending. This isn't the sort of film that audiences flock to.

But it is fascinating. It will give you much to chew on even if it isn't always entertaining enough to sustain its morality play. There were times I felt it dragged but that gave me some time to reflect on some of it's questions. And when it was punching me in the gut I felt it. The emotions here are raw and visceral. Willem Dafoe's stoic narration also adds to the films bleakness.

The ending feels a bit of a cop out. Perhaps though that's the point. The film ends with a big although rather uninspiring concert number. The narrator's rather fantastic revelation at the end can be taken either literally or figuratively which is how it read for me. And as the credits rolled I felt a sad emptiness.

No wonder no one wanted to see it in theatres.

Vox Lux
Starring: Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Jennifer Ehle, Willem Dafoe, Raffey Cassidy
Writer/Director: Brady Corbet