Vox Lux

Being rich and famous must be great. All that money, all that recognition, all that glamour. The hundreds of people you meet everyday. All of them fawning over you and listening out for your every word. Doesn't it sound super? Imagine it, every aspect of your life on display. Sitting down for a meal and hearing your voice over the house speakers and people asking you for a photograph as you try to relax. Doesn't it still sound good? Imagine your busy schedule not giving you a moment to breathe and enjoy your success or spend any meaningful bit of time with your family. Think about your every action being analysed. It's sounds ok......right? No, it sounds like a nightmare.

1999. Staten Island, New York. A vicious act of violence thrusts a 14 year old girl called Celeste headlong into the world of show business after a video of her singing at a memorial service causes a sensation. It's a world she isn't built for or prepared for. 18 years later another senseless bout of brutality rears its head and shakes her world again.

Vox Lux definitely isn't a film for everyone. It's very much the evil twin of A Star Is Born. It opens with a horrifying scene now so common that it's become part of the daily discourse in American life and builds from there. It becomes a look at the dehumanising effects of both violence and show business. They'll both ruin you, one physically and one psychologically. How they both conspire to steal your soul away. Celeste may be a fictional character but it's not hard to see shades of Britney Spears and Whitney Houston in here. People who've been chewed up and spat out by the star making machine. X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent wannabe's take note. Your future isn't bright.

Natalie Portman might be on the poster but the main face in this belongs to Raffie Cassidy who plays both Celeste and Celeste's teenage daughter Albertine. She's excellent in both parts and possesses that type of otherworldly voice that could convincingly see someone become a star. Young Celeste is a waif thrown in at the deep end and seeing her innocence taken from her is hard thing to watch. Cassidy's dual role as Albertine shows what she could have been had fate not intervened. Portman's older Cassidy shows the hard living cynical shell of a person she's become.

It's not hard to see why. A convincingly mean Jude Law as her manager, who places more importance on business than humanity. Journalists who don't see her as anything but news. Her fans don't even see her as a person, only a selfie opp. The way she downs pills and wine shows she's never processed the trauma that made her famous in the first place. Even the age of her daughter says a lot, hinting at the fact that she was forced by her lifestyle to grow up way too fast. It's all a damning indictment of the cult of celebrity.

A strange film but a good one. It's very dark in places but the tone is lightened somewhat by some droll narration from a very blunt Willem Dafoe. The usually reliable Natalie Portman puts in a performance that's too mannered, that feels too much like acting but Raffie Cassidy doing a double shift is excellent. She's the star of this show and hopefully she'll heed it's lessons in her own life. 

Vox Lux is well worth a watch.