By Like every teenage cinephile in 2011, I worshiped Nicolas Winding Refn’s DRIVE. The combination of the petty crime antics and explosive bloodshed of his Pusher trilogy with a mellower, synth-driven cadence bolstered by a quietly terrifying Ryan Gosling performance was intoxicating. Then, Refn started to buy into his growing reputation as a stylistic genius. He brought us ONLY GOD FORGIVES and THE NEON DEMON, both incomprehensible nightmares despite the insistence of some peers that I just didn’t get it. I broke with Refn after that, happily skipping his streaming series TOO OLD TO DIE YOUNG and COPENHAGEN COWBOY without a second thought. Now, here we are a decade later. My tastes have changed considerably, and Refn is newly humbled and invigorated following some unfortunate heart health struggles. It is in that spirit that I celebrate his imperfect, but wildly entertaining giallo tribute, HER PRIVATE HELL, which screened at Fantasia Fest and released in the U.S. this weekend. While I cannot say that this latest outing is less pretentious than his previous work, it embraces a bleak sense of play that his post-DRIVE work lacked. This movie does not even pretend to take place in the real world, and is all the more delightful for it.
We find ourselves in a mysterious futuristic city engulfed by mist. Actress Elle (Sophie Thatcher) has arrived at a hotel to film a quirky sci-fi movie alongside the bubbly Hunter (Kristine Froseth) and former-friend-turned-stepmom Dominique (Havana Rose Liu). Yes, Dominique is now married to Elle’s father Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott) and naturally, these two hate each other’s guts now. Meanwhile, everybody is wary of masked serial killer the Leatherman, who is going around ripping women’s chests open. On the periphery of the story, we track veteran Private K (Charles Melton) as he seeks revenge against the Leatherman for murdering his daughter.
The biggest relief of this piece is Refn’s relaxation of stylistic flourishes that have not served him well. Most notably, the dialogue is no…….Longer…………Spoken……………Super………………….Slowly. He allows this vibrant group of young actresses to bounce off each other, trading relentlessly agitated barbs as they attempt to co-exist. Newly minted scream queen Sophie Thatcher is bursting with rage, miffed beyond belief that she’s been forced to reconcile an impossible situation. Dominique only pours salt in the wound and Havana Rose Liu hilariously relishes every ridiculously acidic moment. HER PRIVATE HELL would not work at all if her performance felt self-conscious in the slightest, and Liu completely delivers. Kristine Froseth seems to be channeling Refn’s imagined version of Sydney Sweeney: a carefree, bubbly blonde who is just excited to be on camera and interact with industry big wigs. She’s exactly as cartoonishly annoying as she needs to be. While I wouldn’t blame people for lambasting Refn for making a film whose story entirely revolves around women hating and undercutting each other, it just isn’t taken seriously enough to read as misogynistic in my eyes, for whatever that is worth.
Charles Melton’s sequences break up the dynamic between the girls, which could’ve easily become monotonous, with a bit of genuinely hardcore action. Evoking a striking mix of Ryan Gosling and Brandon Lee, Private K brutalizes everyone he comes into contact with in search of the Leatherman. Melton, built like a Greek god, throws himself completely into the martial arts. These aren’t Jackie Chan-esque elaborate set pieces. They’re mostly built around Melton delivering a handful of brutal and perfectly posed moves, and without the criminally underrated MAY DECEMBER star’s screen presence, it might feel stiff. Someone needs to put him at the forefront of an action franchise, stat.
This is easily Refn’s most visually and sonically maximalist outing. The city looks like BLADE RUNNER’s Los Angeles had it been consumed by the climate crisis. There’s a sense that this is one of many psychedelic terrors occurring in this vast dystopia. The beautifully lit interiors search for vibrance in the scum, from opulent hotel rooms to crystal-filled movie sets. In fact, when we get onto the soundstage of the kitschy Star Trek-style sci-fi film, its metallic glam looks unlike any similar movie that would exist within our reality; it’s so unapologetically cheesy, perfectly conveying the fact that art in this world has succumbed completely to vacant aesthetic exercises, which I’m sure many will accuse HER PRIVATE HELL of being. In fact, it is so cool-looking that I’m tempted to encourage Refn to pursue some kind of deranged space opera. Meanwhile, the beautiful synthy score by Brian De Palma regular Pino Donaggio (who Refn coaxed out of retirement) sets an operatic tone that completely divorces HER PRIVATE HELL from planet Earth.
There are certainly indulgences that I wish could be sanded out. Refn bluntly admitted during Fantasia’s post-screening Q&A that he films whatever turns him on, which sometimes is annoyingly apparent. There’s a scene in which Thatcher, Rose Liu, and Froseth randomly start barking at each other for no reason other than Refn thinking, “That’ll be hot.” There’s also times where he veers into aggressive overstimulation. As an epileptic person, I initially found myself appreciating some of the slower-paced strobe sequences, but as if Refn somehow psychically picked up on my comfort at being accommodated, he ODs on them during the climax. Somebody has got to convince these guys that just because a scene can look like the worst nightclub you can ever visit doesn’t mean it should.
Regardless, HER PRIVATE HELL is an unapologetic act of creative anarchy from a revitalized Refn. I suspect that I will be one of a precious few converted haters. He makes no attempt to coddle those who are not on board, and many will bounce off of this just as hard as I did for THE NEON DEMON and ONLY GOD FORGIVES. I have absolutely no idea why this was screened for the snobby Cannes crowd who universally rejected it. Perhaps Refn just wanted a laugh. Well, he made me laugh.
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