The Neon Demon | eh

Never before have I been so torn on a single film.

The Neon Demon is in essence very split in terms of overall narrative.
The story and characters are very simple and in no need of much interpretation, while the visuals and nuances of the cinematography are left up entirely to the audience 90% of the time.
This, to me, is the film's biggest "yay" and "eh".

Once I've seen a film I think to myself on how functional the film is (did it evoke any emotions that are in- keeping with the genre and actual intention of the film?). And usually I come to a conclusion relatively quickly.
Take Fargo:
I'd finished watching Fargo about half an hour before deciding to watch TND, and I came to the conclusion that Fargo is a very functional and important film for the genre.
But with TND I couldn't make up my mind.
Not only is it incredibly subversive of its genre, but it's also very difficult to understand what the director wanted, thematically, to come across in certain segments of the film.

Because of this I find it difficult to come to any proper conclusion for the film.
The characters and the story itself are pretty bland, as I said, but can be attributed to the themes at play; people and the outside would are boring but the world of fashion is spellbinding and classy. But even though the idea of having these essential cogs in the machine behave how they do makes sense on a thematic level, it's simply not enough to keep the same machine running.

But as everyone else says, the visuals really are exceptional.
Even Netflix not being able to run at full HD because of our shitty Virgin broadband couldn't detract completely from how dazzling the film looks.
But really, that's the biggest thing I can praise it for.

Ultimately I feel disappointed with TND, I feel as though the film had major issues balancing its priorities in too many ways for it to come out a successful film.
And this damaged the entire experience for me.

The Neon Demon gets a freaky 6/10.