MIFF MOVIE REVIEW: THE NEON DEMON



7/10

Jesse is only sixteen years old and she is a runaway success. Just a few days in LA, and she has already signed up with the major modelling agency. The top designers want her for their shows. Her beauty is so extreme, it makes other models cringe. It is only a matter of time before something horrific is going to occur…

From the opening shot where Jesse is lying with her throat cut, posing for a photo shoot, until the gruesome finale, the movie is soaked in the sense of danger. The film’s incoherent plot has many inconsistences that’s hard to overlook (why top designers would be eating in a cheap American style diners, and why Jesse stays in her seedy motel while she has definitely earned some descent money with her latest gigs remain a mystery), but these logic loopholes add a dream like quality to the story.

If you had been to LA you will recognize the feel of the place is spot on, we get a perfect picture of glamorous and seedy, with hopes and fears mixed into the same cocktail.

Elle Fanning is luminous as Jesse and has a big responsibility on her shoulders. She is the main focus of the film, and she owns this responsibility in every frame. She creates a deep and disturbing character with very little to work with.

THE NEON DEMON maybe considered an extreme satire of modeling cutthroat world, but it is only on the surface. In one of the scenes Jesse is asked by an envious model “how does it feel to walk into the room and be “the sun”?” But if such beauty exists, what is there to balance it? Neon light cannot be without the darkness that surrounds it. In THE NEONE DEMON great beauty and great evil walk hand in hand.


QUICK FACTS

The movie got booed at Canens Film Festival 2016

The composer of the movie Cliff Martinez described THE NEON DEMON as “first part being a melodrama like “Valley of The Dolls” and the second part is like “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”.


THE NEONE DEMON won the prize at Cannes for the best soundtrack in 2016.

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