It has been a fascinating fall for musician biopics. After finding two best picture candidates in A Star Is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody, we’ve now found a similar-themed film which rivals the very worst 2018 had to offer. This weekend I saw two films loaded with song and dance. One was about a singer and dancer; the other involved zombies. I say without an ounce of sarcasm that the zombie film had better singing and dancing … by far. And music was, perhaps, the highlight of Vox Lux. It sure wasn’t the screenplay, acting, directing, or cinematography.
Vox Lux is two films, one chronicled the pre-stardom of pop sensation Celeste (Raffey Cassidy as the teen version, Natalie Portman as the adult), the other about how stardom has changed the star. Neither film is likeable, but I didn’t truly feel let down until I realized what Portman was offering. I’ll get to that in sec.
Writer/director Brady Corbet wastes no time in introducing how poorly the film is going to be shot. A van, I think, is that a van? I can’t tell … drives somewhere and parks somewhere telling us something. I think. Turns out it’s rigged to blow in a combination teenager execution by rifle and teenager execution by explosion, just like we saw in 22 July. Young Celeste is denied heroics when she takes a bullet to the spine. The fallout is that both Cassidy and Portman accessorize dog collars for the rest of the film. During Celeste’s rehab and recovery, she is invited to the wake for all her non-surviving classmates and uses the spotlight to perform a self-written exploration of pain. While the song is touching-but-forgettable, the moment is not and Celeste is thrust into stardom instantly. Celeste and co-writing sister Eleanor (Stacy Martin) –who doesn’t age when Cassidy turns into Portman- head to Sweden for Abba lessons. Willem Dafoe fills in the gaps by announcing whatever it is the film is failing to show us.
You know how a Morgan Freeman voiceover makes you feel invited, comfortable, and generally a little more satisfied about life? Willem Dafoe is kinda the opposite. Dafoe paces Vox Lux, reminding us periodically of a key plot point the director seems to have forgotten. And in uncanny fashion, each time Dafoe talks, you feel worse about the film you’re watching.
The first half shows us a Celeste we probably wouldn’t care about had she not been shot and then become a pop star in the wake. It’s tolerable only because we feel the girl deserves a break after getting the Columbine treatment, but really the first half of the film is just there to introduce Celeste, her sibling rivalry, and The Manager, a slimeball played by Jude Law.
So I didn’t like the first half, but I tolerated it knowing that Natalie Portman was gonna be around eventually. And when she finally arrived, I longed for the first half again. Portman plays Celeste as if there’s an Oscar category for least likeable performance. In the 16-year interim, Celeste has become mean, self-centered, shallow, and disgustingly irresponsible. Jude Law, meanwhile, has had sexual relationships with both sisters, and Raffey Cassidy is now playing her own daughter –cuz that won’t confuse anybody.
And each scene is awful. Every time we explore how Celeste has grown, we like her less. This parade of drugs, bad parenting, crapping on her fans, crapping on her sister, crapping on the press, and her rivalry with a past she can’t live down culminates in what we’ve all been waiting for, a stage performance. And not just any stage performance, one Madonnawannabe collection of sound and movement so mediocre that I was hoping Simon Cowell would show up to comment. After watching Black Swan, I mistakenly believed Natalie Portman could dance. After watching Vox Lux, however, I now know Natalie cannot dance … and she can’t sing, either.
Well, gee, how can you go wrong with pretentious act titles like “Regenesis?” It occurred to me about 15 minutes near completion that the ugliness was purposeful, that Brady Corbet had something to say and chose to say it by making the kind of film you want to turn off again and again and again. So what is the message here, Brady? Life sucks, even for notables? Nothing born of evil can ever be good? That celebrity corrupts? I find all of these messages trite, invalid, and hardly representative. Going after celebrity as the ultimate corrupter is hardly a new thought and one that pales to the corruption of money and bigotry as reflections on current society. Hence, I found Vox Lux pretentious, errant, nearly unwatchable, and one of the worst films of the year; Brady, Natalie, Vox, you’ll be hearing from me when the bottom 10 is revealed.
♪You might be my only star
‘Cause my film sucks from here to Zanzibar
When I made this film, you ought to know
I was on some really depressing blow♫
Rated R, 110 Minutes
Director: Brady Corbet
Writer: Brady Corbet
Genre: Evil begets evil
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People that have given up hope on the human race … and snotty film critics
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Everybody else
♪ Parody Inspired by “Lucky Star”
