Sophie Thatcher faces a monster called the Leather Man in a gorgeous but maddening maze of fashion, violence and mythology.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Auteur Nicolas Winding Refn (“Valhalla Rising,” “Drive”), who has made films for Gucci and Prada, has now apparently made a dream-like, feature-length advertisement for an unidentified fashion house. Ten years after his last feature, “The Neon Demon,” which was set in the modeling world, Refn has completed “Her Private Hell,” a film set in some future dystopian metropolis (that again?) mantled in a mystery thick mist from which monsters are expected to emerge. Although Refn and Esti Giordani (TV’s “Stick”) are the listed screenwriters, I demand Stephen King get credit.
One of these mist-emergent things is an entity named “the Leather Man,” and he is known to track down female victims and rip them apart. The protagonist is a beautiful young woman and potential victim named Elle (although I far prefer “It Girl,” I guess I must say “person of the moment” Sophie Thatcher). Elle’s name could be short for Electra, the famous daddy-avenger of playwright Sophocles’ fame. Yes, Elle has daddy issues, too, regarding her father, whose name is, ahem, Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott), and not Agamemnon (speaking of “The Odyssey”). Johnny is married to Dominique (Havana Rose Liu, “Bottoms”), who is not much older than Elle. The similarity between Dominique’s name and “dominatrix” is accidental, I’m sure. Dominique and Elle are inseparable. Another even younger woman named Hunter (Margot Robbie look-alike Kristine Froseth) is also BFF’s with them. Dominique repeatedly calls Elle “little match girl,” the name of the tragic heroine of the 19th-century short story by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. I honestly don’t see the connection, except that the director was born in Copenhagen. Outside of her daddy issues, the most noteworthy thing about Elle is that she bedazzles her eyes with rhinestone-like glass.
“Her Private Hell” also evokes the Greek myth of Persephone, the goddess abducted by Hades and forced to live with him as his queen in the Underworld. The Leather Man is obviously a variation on a theme of Hades. The action suddenly shifts to a sci-fi model: a spaceship piloted by Elle enters an unstable zone and crashes. Elle and the other female characters that we have met then engage in a gunfight with handheld blasters.
Elle is also a dead ringer for Candy Floss, the star of a comic book series in the film. Among the many things this film lacks is a runway. Suddenly, we meet a character dubbed Private K (Charles Melton), a police officer who uses a vicious set of brass knuckles. Another male, a seducer named Nico (Diego Calva, “Babylon”), appears and is also Dominique’s lover. A strange shop owned by two Asian women (Shioli Kutsuna and Aoi Yamada) also figures in the story.
On the whole, however, outside of Elle’s tortured feelings toward her father, “Her Private Hell” is about when and where the Leather Man, who is also some version of Johnny, is going to get Elle and tear her apart. The film has several moments of stage-setting, extreme, violent gore. Private K gets into a fight that recalls martial arts icon Bruce Lee. The Bernard Herrmann-like music of Brian De Palma favorite Pino Donaggio comes and goes. Lenser Magnus Nordenhof Jonck likes flashing blue-and-red lights reflected on human faces. Refn’s fondness for uniform, hotel-like corridors evokes Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” (1980). Private K’s motorcycle jacket and Elle’s red leather coat are also iconic and, like the diamond-decorated gloves of the Leather Man, remind us of Michael Jackson. Why?
Watching “Her Private Hell” is like entering a Refn psychological echo chamber. Thatcher’s incredibly expressive and madly mutable face (see “Companion”) is used shamefully little. The cast members do not act so much as model their clothes and accessories. The dialogue gives the characters something to say in front of the camera, but it conveys little meaning, music, or story. It’s hard to believe Refn directed those nasty, Copenhagen-set “Pusher” crime films of the late ’90s and early aughts. Ironically, one might argue that haute couture has been his downfall.
‘Her Private Hell’
Rating: R, extreme, grotesque violence, sexual content and profanity
Cast: Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Writers: Refn, Esti Giordani
Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Where to Watch: In theaters
Grade: C
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