Vox Lux Review

Vox Lux is a very strange movie, one that was different than I expected based on the trailers. While watching I was not into it for a lot of the movie, but after the credits rolled it all started to hit me. At it’s core the movie is about how exposure to violence at such a young age can really mess up a lot of people, and we see that through the eyes of Celeste. As an audience we never get any tangible story about the pain that all the characters feel, but it’s through the performances that we see this. Natalie Portman does a phenomenal job and is totally lost in the role. The actress that plays her younger self, Raffey Cassidy, was a little inconsistent but I think it still was a solid enough performance.

Surface level, the movie seems kind of like an incoherent mess. While the deeper I look into it, and the more I looked into the characters eyes and read their feelings instead of listening to their words, I realized there was so much more going on in this movie. Just like Celeste, where she appears to just be a big brat pop star, when really she has been struggling for 20 years trying to keep what little sanity she has left.

The camera work is phenomenal, I had never heard of Lol Crawley, but the long shots in this really allowed me to connect to the characters a lot more and watch the performances evolve throughout the film. And the thought that went into the pacing was incredible. How a shot would go from conversation to pulling focus and giving us some narration and then another conversation all in a continuous take. I really did not expect such intimate and provoking shots throughout the film and was pleasantly surprised.

I hope I make time to watch this again in the future, or read up more about it because I’m sure there is a lot more going on that I just couldn’t pick up on first glance. Or maybe there isn’t and I’m just trying hard to create themes and shit where their was no intent for any. That’s art I guess.

Final Score 9/10