Refn makes incredibly beautiful films. Imagine if he ever got his hands on a story that was worth telling. Instead we get this hollow, rather tedious story which he seems to love to tell. Her Private Hell might be one of his most painfully boring stories yet. It's complete lack of emotional investment makes it a tedious slog no matter how gorgeously he crafts his art direction, costumes, cinematography. Movies are very much a visual medium and I love when a director understands this. But they also need to resonate emotionally or intellectually and so far I have seen little evidence Refn gets this part.
Her Private Hell feels like an AI verson of a David Lynch film. Minimalist yet stunning sets, slow moving pans, lingering shots of the cast being reflective. But it's missing all of the underlying tension, horror, and emotion that Lynch captures. I'd rather have flipped through a photo book of stills from this film than had to sit through its plot.
I feel for the cast who are doing their best with what they are given. This pretty much falls at Refn's feet for creating something with so little substance. This is reportedly a horror story in a way, yet it evokes no horror of any kind, not even an coldly intellectual existential horror. The only horror is that I sat all the way through it.
Her Private Hell
Starring: Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu, Kristine Froseth, Shioli Kutsuna, Aoi Yamada, Dougray Scott, Diego Calva, Hidetoshi Nishijima
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Writers: Esti Giordani, Nicolas Winding Refn
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