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Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Vox Lux (2018)

Wow, this was kind of a roller coaster ride with a strange destination.  Natalie Portman does a spectacular job of portraying the crash and burn end of a career for a glam rocker.
But it didn't start out that way.  Willem Dafoe is the narrator who introduces us to the 13-year-old Celeste, played by the remarkable Raffey Cassidy.  Out of the blue, she finds herself badly injured during a Columbine-like school shooting, a tragic common-occurrence staple these days. The incident inspires her to write a musical lament — and the song, cowritten with her older sister Eleanor (Stacy Martin), surprisingly catapults her into the celebrity sphere virtually overnight. Suddenly, Celeste is has a manager (ably played by Jude Law, who does absoultely every sleezy thing you would imagine a manager to do) who has sold her to the highest bidder. From L.A. video shoots to recording studios in Stockholm, the teenager is shoved into a world for which nothing has prepared her, especially a pregnancy that results from a one-night stand with an older Brit rocker.
And so it goes.  The drugs, the alcohol, the grueling travel schedule, the people hanging on, sooner or later it would take a toll on anyone, and Natalie Portman's character takes us down and through that rabbit hole.

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