The Neon Demon

The Neon Demon - in which Elle Fanning is not as good of an actor as her sister. Sorry. Marketed as a horror movie, this starts out atmospheric and innocence focused, with a pretty girl being photographed by a guy who looks like a creep. I'm not really gonna start on how unnecessary it is to illustrate that the movie is filmed through a male gaze, because its about models, and its a major studio movie. Of course the lens is the male gaze. Whatever, skip it. So, over the course of two long ass hours, here's what happens. Elle is befriended by Jena Malone who is a makeup artist. She goes to a LA party where Jena introduces her to her mean model friends. Elle is only 16 (shock! she said her parents were DEAD), her agent tells her to lie about her age to everyone. She has a boyfriend in his 20's, she tells him her real age, and he doesn't leave her. Whatever, he also wants to protect her, he seems nice enough. Elle is staying at a seedy motel run by a grouchy Keanu Reeves. She gets a gig with a famous photographer and he kicks everyone out and makes her strip and rubs gold paint on her body. I don't care, Jena waits outside until its over, and then invites Elle to call when she gets into trouble. Then Elle gets into trouble. Like, she gets cast in a runway show, but at the cattle call for it, she checks on some crying girl in the bathroom, who smashes a mirror and licks Elle's blood when she falls on the glass. After the show, Elle brings her boyfriend to meet the designer, who is a dick, and the boyfriend leaves, and Elle is drawn deeper into the sordid world of fashion and beauty and selfishness and pretension. Back at the dirty motel Elle has a nightmare of Keanu raping her, so she locks her door just in time to avoid being raped, but hears it happen to the 15 year old in the next room. Instead of calling the POLICE, she calls Jena Malone, who takes her in, and tries to fuck her, and doesn't take rejection that well. The next day, Elle just hangs around, and Jena, at her day job, fucks a pretty, blonde corpse, before meeting her mean friends back at her house, and murdering Elle. Because she is too pretty and will put them all out of work. They fucking eat her, and shower in her blood. Whatevs, will this movie just end already? I don't care about any of this. One of the models can't take the spooky cannibalism and kills herself after vomiting up an eyeball, the other model eats the eyeball and rolls out to Queen it up, and Jena Malone plays in the dirt of a shallow grave. Honestly, the models (and Jena) are really good actors, and they did an awesome job.