Photo via IMDb
By Keith Walther | Rose Law Group Reporter
It is one week after the release of the best film of the year, and “The Odyssey” hangover is real with another contender for worst film of the year waddling into theaters. “Her Private Hell” is a neon infused fever dream of lustful fantasy mixed with a slasher horror that pretends to have profound messaging. The plot is as murky and convoluted as the perpetual mist spewing from the fog machine in nearly every scene.
There are two different storylines happening simultaneously. One is about a troubled actress named Elle (Sophie Thatcher), who desperately seeks the attention of her father Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott) while dealing with the dysfunctional relationship she has with her friend turned stepmom, Dominique (Havana Rose Liu). The other focuses on Private K (Charles Melton) an American soldier in post-war Japan trapped in some kind of purgatory, fighting off Yakuza human traffickers while searching for his missing daughter. There’s also a bejeweled, mythical serial killer referred to as Leather Man who lurks in the mist preying on young women. Confused yet?
After his resounding success with “Drive,” which was the best film of 2011, Danish writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn (NWR) has followed that with arguably the worst film of 2013, “Only God Forgives,” and an equally disastrous film in 2016 called “The Neon Demon.” His string of failures continues with this latest self-indulgent effort that seems to pander to feminism on the surface but comes across as more offensive channeled through a chauvinistic male purview. All that’s missing is a stereotypical pillow fight between the attractive female characters before the obligatory lesbian sex scene. Every female character is shallow and vapid, while every male character is cool and dangerous as they find creative new ways to light matches off their faces to light their cigarettes.
NWR persistently chooses style over substance, neglecting any hint of a cohesive narrative. Instead, he opts for a fever dream approach, bathing a set, which looks inspired by 1982’s “The Dark Crystal,” in neon lighting and colors with an overworked fog machine. It becomes more of a neon-packaged nightmare, giving every scene a detached, surreal quality that makes it unwatchable. This must’ve been what it was like in Studio 54 in 1977, while tripping on psychedelics, and subsequently regretting the choice to attend in the first place. The music composed by Pino Donaggio, while quite good, gives the film a haunting operatic feel to it that secretes off-Broadway vibes…but so far off-Broadway, it may as well be in Hoboken, NJ.
To balance the sterile landscape of perfect geometric shapes, NWR resorts to shock value cinema with the imagery to provoke feeling and reactions. He incorporates sudden violence and gore to wake a fading audience, like brutally showing a woman’s head being smashed into a window or chest being ripped open by hand. He even throws in a graphic sexual moment for good measure to complete this psycho-sexual nightmare. It’s like watching an interpretive dance to a song only NWR hears, testing viewers’ will to endure the nearly two hours of hypnotic incoherence.
The cast is not to be blamed for this sloppy mess of a film. In fact, Sophie Thatcher once again shows off her scene-stealing talent despite the poorly written character she portrays. She marvelously transitions from a glamourous, self-assured, ambivalent Hollywood nepo-baby to an unhinged, cantankerous woman with daddy issues, desperately seeking purpose for her own existence. This is a fantastic actress who deserves so much better from a better filmmaker. Hopefully, this just becomes a minor blip on an otherwise promising rise to stardom.
Out of the dozen people who also attended this film on opening night, half of them could not even make it to the halfway point before leaving in disgusted frustration. “Her Private Hell” is torturous, incoherent nonsense that belongs at the end of a pitchfork roasting in hellfire. After this third disappointing failure in a row, it is completely fair to judge NWR as a one-hit wonder incapable of tapping into the magic that made him relevant in the first place.
This movie earns:
