Vox Lux
An acoustic masterpiece with a dark story. - 7/10
by Francesco Bakhos - 365 Movies Lebanon
God knows how long I've waited to watch watch Vox Lux.
This movie centers around 13 y.o music prodigy Celeste, whom survived a horrific school shooting in Staten Island, NY, in 1999. Soon enough, the young phenom transforms into a rising pop star with a promising future. Eighteen years later, Celeste now finds herself on the comeback trail when a scandal, personal struggles and the pitfalls of fame threaten her career.
I have to admit, for some minor flaws, this movie did not live up to my expectations fully but I can't deny the importance of such a story nowadays. With a dark/provocative story and some complex characters, Director Brady Corbet might have just given us the movie of his career.
As usual, I'll be dividing my review into 2 main categories : the positives and the negatives.
*The Positives : first things first, I'm totally in love with Corbet's dark and ominous directing techniques. This movie had one of the best color palettes I've seen recently.
The story was divided into various parts, each one with a message of its own. Some were about violence and its psychological impact on the victims, others were about substance abuse, alcoholism, faith, family, motherhood.... You name it. This film is so deep and multilayered, that the mind cant simply seem to process it alone. It requires to be felt by the heart and the spirit.
To continue, im really impressed with contrast between the beginning and the ending, the contrast between innocence and impurity and the role of fame in further deepening this contrast.
In addition, Vox Lux' characters didn't have this really well constructed backstory but I didn't really care because each one managed to stand out as a collection of metaphors and symbols, each one of a story of its own. Jude Law and Stacy Martin were really good and totally nailed their parts. But no one came close to Natalie Portman's electrifying and award worthy performance or Raffey Cassidy's stellar dual-performance. These 2 absolutely killed it and helped in creating an overall enjoyable cinematic experience.
The last thing I want to highlight in this category is the acoustically appealing soundtracks that were on the verge of being perfect. They created a dark retro vibe that will hypnotize all listeners.
But unfortunately, this film contained some minor flaws such as the incredibly slow pace that sometimes bored me or the some inconsistencies in the story that were hard to follow.
In thr end, Vox Lux is the kind of movies that you won't be able to forget anytime soon. Absolutely recommend it.
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