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Jun 24, 2016 Web Exclusive By Sarah Winshall

As star Elle Fanning sees it, Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest film, The Neon Demon, is the story of “Dorothy coming to Oz if she was the evil one.” It’s an astute conclusion. Although Fanning’s Jesse – a fresh-faced teen just off the bus and hoping to make it in Los Angeles – is decidedly naïve (dare I say virginal), there is something sinister about her confidence. When a fellow model confides in Jesse, saying, “Nobody likes how they look,” Jesse responds with an unwavering “I do.” Her wide eyes betray no irony; it’s an honest answer that in its lack of self-consciousness becomes terrifying. Generally, a high opinion of ones’ looks is scorned, especially in the very attractive. But for Refn, The Neon Demon sets out to explore “narcissism as a quality.” He wondered “what it would be like to be born beautiful.”

Refn framed this hyper-stylized tale of jealous models fighting to stay young and desired in Hollywood as a horror film in part because he wanted to ensure that “young people” would come out to watch it. But the film appeals to audiences of all ages. As actress Christina Hendricks sees it, the teens may enjoy the film for the sex and gore, but adults will take away something else, “It’s definitely something I have to have a different feeling about. If the image of beauty is a 16 year old girl, how does that make me feel? Mine [as a 41 year old woman] is a different experience.”

The Neon Demon offers varying experiences to its audience as a result of it’s dynamic relationship to the vanity and superficial value system at the heart of this comic book Hollywood. Refn’s film is simultaneously enthralled with Jesse’s beauty and repulsed by her power, self-consciously embracing the sick sense of pleasure gained from looking at young, pretty women glare at each other, jealously devouring one another with their eyes. As the film’s explicit tag line reminds us, “Beauty isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”

(theneondemon.com)