It’s been a decade since Nicolas Winding Refn last released a feature film. Bronson, Valhalla Rising, Drive, Only God Forgives, and The Neon Demon — what a run. Most of the last ten years were spent tethered to streaming giants, developing Too Old to Die Young for Amazon and Copenhagen Cowboy for Netflix. The Danish filmmaker admits that, as his nearly decade-long episodic adventure was winding down, he felt there was “nothing else left” in his career.
Then, he died. No, really.
Her Private Hell marks the return of a creator imbued with new life in the truest definition of a second chance. It’s Refnized to the core — if anything, his striking visuals and ethereal signatures have only intensified. Post-death clarity translates into another neon-blazing pastiche of sensuality, electric colorization, and elegant madness that is quite certainly not for everyone. It’s a story about daddy issues, delusional actresses, and leathered-up villains as only he can tell… for better and worse. As is common for Refn, Her Private Hell isn’t one-size-fits-all; one size fits Refn, and he doesn’t care if you’re along for the ride or gone in sixty seconds.
Sophie Thatcher stars as starlet Elle, a hot young thing filming a throwback “space babes” picture in a futuristic, Blade Runner 2049-y metropolis. Her ex-best friend and co-star, Dominique (Havana Rose Liu), is married to her playboy-projecting father, Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott). Then there’s Private K (Charles Melton), an American GI concurrently searching for a serial murderer — a lady-killing figure known as the Leatherman. As Elle’s extravagant lifestyle unravels, she finds herself in Private K’s orbit, and thus the Leatherman’s as well. Elle will either make it out alive or become another torn-apart statistic.
Refn’s sense of framing, color palette, and cinematic style are undeniable. Her Private Hell is a Neo-Japanese giallo daydream boasting a mix of cotton-candy hues, 1960s science-fiction retrofuturism, and runway-model fashions. The purple-pink skylines, the Leatherman’s tight-fitting gimp chic, the high-society grandeur that reveals a predatory underbelly — it’s all so sharply imagined. Cinematographer Magnus Nordenhof Jønck reteams with Refn after Copenhagen Cowboy, and it’s like they’re operating the camera as one symbiotic entity. The dazzling shot compositions that Refn used to win over Hollywood are impossible to ignore; his illustrations, to zero shock, are not compromised.
Refn’s penchant for drifting through nebulous storytelling concepts is a boon to Her Private Hell. It’s a film with ideas: a Shakespearean fairy tale about immortal planes; a Bunraku-esque slasher with gangster flashes; a seedy Hollywood commentary about bastards preying on women. The film’s perspective swaps between subplots vying for top billing like a wobbly circus performer juggling slippery balls. They all intersect — there’s some method to Refn’s madness, after all — yet Her Private Hell feels strangely disjointed as pieces covered in sweat, glitter, and blood meet with friction.
The biggest rub is the initial gap between Elle’s problems with Dominique and “Daddy,” and Private K’s action-forward investigation. Elle’s focus is on glamour and manipulation, corrupted by the competition between Johnny Thunders’ ladies, while Private K is kicking down backroom doors and hunting a hunky psychopath. You can see where both characters will inevitably collide, but the nature of their dueling narratives is hardly in harmony. You can sense Refn basking in his film’s buzzy glow, loving every second and soaking it all in, but that’s also why the story feels like it keeps us at arm’s length, unfolding at its own wobbly pace.
If Her Private Hell is a practice of self-indulgence, Thatcher is infallible as Elle, whose performance spirals into a complex examination of her insecurities. The balance between appearing nonchalant and the dangerous pitfalls of sleazy industry dynamics becomes an unwinnable game as Elle clashes with Dominique or rolls her eyes at Kristine Froseth’s naive newbie to the group, Hunter. But then in steps Melton, in uniform and with a death glare, to wash away all the bitterness and boozing with his mercenary’s mission to inflict brutal justice. He’s a stone-cold anti-hero with glistening abs, and equally as impressive in terms of performance power, which also goes for much of the cast. Thatcher and Melton stand tallest, yet the ensemble is well suited to Refn’s approach overall.
As Her Private Hell unloads on audiences, it’s Refn at his most intoxicating and elusive. He’s working out demons from his past, like a gorgeous movie-within-a-movie sequence that sticks Elle on a Barbarella-type set (an adaptation Refn was courted for but never saw to completion). There’s more picturesque merit in thirty seconds of Her Private Hell than other filmmakers’ entire catalog; either you’re hypnotized, or trapped in your own private hell of storytelling knuckleballs. There’s no in-between, because that’s never been Refn. Nor should he compromise his ambitions — after all, they’ve gotten him this far.
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