The Neon Demon is directed by Nicholas Winding Refn and follows Jesse (Elle Fanning) who moves to Los Angeles as a 16 year old to pursue modeling. As she becomes successful, she faces the wrath of other aspiring models who despise the attention her fresh face receives as well the creepy men that young women in LA and the model profession often encounter. Her personality also begins to change during her rise to the top.
If La La Land is the hopeful, romanticized, “pretty lie” of a look at life trying to make it in Hollywood, The Neon Demon is the no frills, “ugly truth” glimpse at what moving to the big city to become a star may entail. Jesse’s having to navigate jealous competitors and, later on, her burgeoning ego sell the idea of the difficulty of pursuing and ultimately gaining success. The film also serves as a scathing critique of beauty standards and how woman are socialized to interact with each other. I think this subtext is where the film gets most of its worth and makes the biggest statement.
The film is partly an examination of the ways that women socialize with one another in our society. Jesse is immediately subject to snippy comments from fellow aspiring models Sarah and Gigi, interrogating her about her sex life after being taken to a party by makeup artist and her first new friend in LA, Ruby (Jena Malone). I feel like the commentary provided by the film is a fascinating one but, something that I am not qualified to speak on as a man. The pressure that these aspiring models are under to stay thin and fight off other aspiring models for top jobs is on full display through Sarah and Gigi’s relationship with Jesse. During a pivital scene at an audition for a runway show, this competition comes to head. Jesse is singled out by fashion designer Robert Sarno (Alessandro Nivola) as a standout model. You can see Sarah’s heart slowly breaking as she watches helplessly while she’s passed by by the new face in town. After Sarah breaks a mirror in rage after the failed audition, Jesse comes to the bathroom to see what the ruckus is and offer words of comfort. Sarah chastises her for pretending not to see that she’s become a “ghost” and asks her what it feels like to command a room. Jesse confesses that it’s “everything.”
As Jesse’s star rises, the cattiness she is subjected to increases. After landing a runway spot, Gigi matter of factly accuses her of sleeping with the designer, and tells her that she looks masculine. The show goes well for Jesse and her performance in it and the way it was shot and directed serve as her transformation. Her walk is shot in dynamic color against an all black backdrop and you can almost watch her transform into a new person in the face of success and boost of confidence. Winding Refn puts Fanning in more makeup from this scene forward, driving home the fact that Jesse has now become a new woman. Her transformation is made complete post-show when Dean and the casting director have a debate over what beauty entails. The casting director puts emphasis on the physical and mocks Dean’s assertion that it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Disgusted, Dean tells Jesse he wants to leave. Her reply? “So go.” Dean waits for her at her apartment later that night and confronts her, asking her who she wants to be; vapid and vain like those they just left or something else. Jesse replies “I don’t want to be them. They want to be me.”
Jesse is also not without her encounters with ill intentioned people. She is subjected to a creepy encounter in her sleep by her motel manager Hank (played creepily by Keanu Reeves) and has to lock herself in her room when someone tries to gain entry, only to be subjected to hearing the screams of her neighbor who wasn’t as successful in blocking the predator. After running to Ruby’s house for shelter, Ruby tries to seduce and force herself on the young model. I found the choice of using a woman for the attempted assault interesting. These kinds of experiences are a dime a dozen for young aspiring female entertainers in big American cities and the portrayal of these pitfalls in The Neon Demon are well done. The feeling of dread, sometimes real and sometimes a curveball for the audience, when Jesse is alone with someone of much more experience than her is a great representation of real life problems for people alone in these places searching for their big break.
The Neon Demon’s cinematography is superb and one of 2016’s standouts. The film makes heavy use of dynamic, bright, neon-like color which works for me as a movie about modeling and style. I also interpreted the fact that the brighter, more neon colors mostly appeared during modeling shoots meant that “The Neon Demon” was modeling itself; the bright lights, glamour, and fame serving as a metaphorical demon that leads women toward being destructive against one another and toward lecherous men with ill intentions.
The ending of the film makes the biggest statement in my opinion. After being rejected by Jesse, Ruby has Sarah and Gigi come over to the house where all three conspire to kill her. Before her death, while standing on the diving board above the empty pool where she will later perish, Jesse says:
“You know what my mother used to call me? Dangerous. You’re a dangerous girl. She was right. I am dangerous. I know what I look like. What’s wrong with that anyway? Women would kill to look like this. They carve and stuff, and inject themselves. They starve to death. Hoping, praying that one day they’ll look like a second rate version of me.”
Her subsequent murder at the hands of these women prove her correct. Her beauty and the pressures that it put on the others and how society has programmed young women to compete and compare one another pushes women toward confrontation. Not normally to the extremes we see in The Neon Demon, put detrimental nonetheless. This extreme look at the consequences of such socialization serves to make the audience think about what this is doing to the women in our everyday lives. The guilt carried by Gigi after that night, in my opinion, is meant to represent the regret that many women carry for the times they have been unnecessarily hurtful to one another. That the trio ate her is a metaphor about how our society consumes beauty and the pursuit of it leads to women cannibalizing one another.
Elle Fanning is great in her portrayal of Jesse and makes the arc from naive, apprehensive teenager to successful, self sure model believable. Bella Heathcote and Abby Lee begin the as typical supporting characters but their selling of the aftermath of Jesse’s murder is dynamic, particularly Heathcote. Keanu Reeves was also interesting playing something other than his heroic or leading man roles.
The Neon Demon is a good above the surface look at the modeling industry and aspiring models and a great subtextual look at how society treats beauty and women. It is beautifully shot with excellent cinematography, one of the best of the year. The middle of the movie does drag slightly but the themes touched on by the ending are a good pay off.
Image: Amazon Studios
