Being big fans of the director’s first movie, Mr C and I diligently made our way to the Curzon to catch his new offering. Where we encountered that difficult second movie syndrome. This feels like a film hung on a premise which has failed to be be developed. The ubiquitous Willem Dafoe provides sporadic voiceovers to join the dots, but the end these only highlight the gaps. The film is divided into three parts, with some creative casting (the mother becomes the daughter). After surviving a school shooting, Celeste writes a song which goes viral and leads to her becoming a slightly generic pop star. The first act is the shooting, the second the aftermath and the third takes place years later, by which stage Celeste has transformed into Natalie Portman. Which is where things really start to go awry. Portman’s performance is turbocharged but aimless. There’s a desperate intensity which only serves to annoy everyone, including the viewer. On the one hand this seems quite plausible: no doubt most mega pop stars are a pain in the ass in their private lives. On the other hand it kyboshes and unbalances the whole film. Corbett shows flashes of innovative talent, but as a whole the film doesn’t hang together. It might be worth noting that with Childhood of a Leader, he had a co-writer, Mona Fastvold, whereas on Vox Lux he’s going solo. Nevertheless there’s an incipient, nagging talent at work. He won’t be the first to have been struck down by the grizzly disease of second film syndrome.
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