VOX LUX

From the moment it begins, there’s an intoxicating dynamism to ‘Vox Lux’. It moves with certainty, unafraid to jolt you from one moment or tone to another. If Celeste is a star born of fire, the fire must be extreme and the journey through the woods as dark and disorienting as possible, and this shows in the gritty immediacy of Lol Crawley’s cinematography, the freneticism and invention in Mathew Hannam’s editing and the almost Hermann-esque opulence of Scott Walker’s score. There’s also an unsettling darkness to Keri Langerman’s baroque modernist costumes, where everything from jeans and t-shirts to sparked jumpsuits act as emotional armour for the characters, physical manifestations of their anger at the world and themselves. There’s something almost mythical about ‘Vox Lux’, Corbet embracing Celeste’s journey as modern American mythology, the dream of fame and the cost of self-expression. He neither worships his subject nor damns her, but simply observes as one does an animal in a zoo. It does occasionally feel like an imitation of Nicholas Winding Refn (with strong overtones of ‘The Neon Demon’), but the film’s biting sense of humour is enough to distinguish it.

You would imagine that with a film about a pop star, music would be an integral part of the storytelling, but it ends up becoming one of this film’s unexpected weaknesses. The songs are composed by Sia and performed by Cassidy and Portman, and for the most part are pretty stellar (as you would expect from Sia). However, their use within the film isn’t as strong, and here’s the one moment where I’ll indulge in a comparison with Bradley Cooper’s ‘A Star is Born’: where in that film the music formed an integral part of the narrative, often allowing us insight into the characters or becoming integral plot points, in ‘Vox Lux’, Corbet doesn’t seem to know what to do with the music. If they reveal some aspect of Celeste’s inner life, we’re never given the chance to see that, with none of the songs performed in full. Maybe this is intentional or Corbet doesn’t see them as necessary, but it leaves this aspect of the film unsatisfying. The same can be said of the concert finale, something the second half of the film builds thrillingly towards, only for it to be standard and bloated and confused. Perhaps it could have been stronger with more use of it or none at all, but this is one thing ‘Vox Lux’ probably shouldn’t have only gone halfway on.

As bombastic and surprising as Corbet’s filmmaking is, the real fireworks come from Natalie Portman, who finds a way to somehow surprise yet again as adult Celeste. She’s tempestuous, hilarious, erratic, dynamic, thrilling, shocking, explosive, damning and devastating, a performance erupting with electricity and utterly thrilling to watch. At this stage of her career, Portman has basically become spectacle personified, and ‘Vox Lux’ just cements this further. Raffey Cassidy continues to prove herself shockingly talented in the dual role of both young Cassidy and adult Cassidy’s daughter Albertine. There’s a grit to Cassidy’s work, a volatility and danger that comes as such a surprise from someone so young. There’s also great work from Jude Law, Stacy Martin and Jennifer Ehle as Celeste’s publicist Josie, and Willem Dafoe strikes a delicious tone as the film’s narrator, delivering some of Corbet’s finest writing with a wonderfully sarcastic wit.

The act of watching ‘Vox Lux’ is one that thrills and surprises in equal measure, and for the most part, the film feels like an artistic and thematic coup, willing to probe where others dare not and to provoke in strange and dangerous ways. It’s more the pity then that it never quite reaches the ambition Brady Corbet aims for, and its final moments feel more like a whimper than a bang. And yet, I still found myself celebrating that ambition and reeling from yet another stunning performance from Natalie Portman, so that even if ‘Vox Lux’ loses its shine the more you think about it, at least it's a film you won’t forget about anytime soon.