Vox Lux (2018)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5960374/
WARNING: This review contains SPOILERS!!
Plot Device or plot mechanism,
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is any technique in a narrative used to move the plot forward. A contrived or arbitrary plot device may annoy or confuse the reader, causing a loss of the suspension of disbelief. However a well-crafted plot device, or one that emerges naturally from the setting or characters of the story, may be entirely accepted, or may even be unnoticed by the audience. (source: WIKI)
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The first half of the movie begins with Celeste (Natalie Portman) being born in 1986.
In 1999 at the age of 13, while she was attending a public school in New York city, a student shoots up the school and in the process, injures her and kills several students including her friends.
Celeste recovers from her wounds and sings at the memorial service. Her singing gets noticed and with the help of a talent manager (Jude Law), she becomes a rising star.
The second half of the movie begins 2017, Celeste is now 21 years old:
she has put her personal tragedy of the school shooting behind her.
Celeste has become a global pop icon, a celebrity powerhouse, an American icon and she is also seen as a secular deity by millions of her fans worldwide.
She makes a music video of her latest pop single.
In it she and the troupe of dancers wear masks.
In a beach town in Croatia, a group of gunmen wearing the same exact masks shoots 14 beachgoers to death and injure many others.
The media tries to put a negative spin on Celeste by tying her music to the terrorists.
Can Celeste deal with the media and again recover from another tragedy and continue to be who she is and the musical pop star she has become and rise above it all?
Now I don't know what this movie was aiming for!!
First to use a school shooting as the plot device for the origin of the main character, the movie makers should be ashamed of themselves.
They could had used something else like maybe someone Celeste loves survives a personal battle against cancer and it inspires her to write songs and sing.
Then to start the second half of the movie with another mass shooting event just to re-elevate and rebirth her character, that's just unacceptable!!
E especially in this day and time where almost every week there is a mass shooting occuring in the USA somewhere.
Furthermore, the movie does not try to convey any solutions or explanations to why these mass shootings are occuring and what we as society can do to prevent them and to stop them from re-occuring.
The acting and dialogue is also very bland.
The singing and concert sequences were very unconvincing.
There were also several scenes where Natalie Portman came across as being bored or distant or just aloof to the whole thing:
it was as if she showed up on the set for that day of filming just so she can get a paycheck.
Why did someone as talented and straight headed as Natalie Portman even agreed to make this movie after she read the script is beyond me!
On the top of the movie poster, it reads:
I was not Vowed one bit. I was bored while at the same time I was puzzled.
To use such controversial topic as school shooting and mass shooting as the plot device and to not make any effort to explain why such tragedies keep occuring and to not offer solutions, it just makes the entire movie quite pointless.
It also makes me question whether this film's screenwriters and director and producers have a unhealthy and morbid fascination with mass shootings.
Sorry, Natalie, you know I have always admired you, your talent, your tenacity ever since you made your critically acclaimed film debut in The Professional when you were just 13 years old:
in the the past 25 years since that film, you have made many great movies which have showcased your great acting skills and range.
But this is one time I have to say you dropped the ball with this film.
Natalie: hopefully your next film
Lucy in the Sky where you play an astronaut, loosely based on these events will be better:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_N...rlando_Airport
In the meantime I can only give your latest cinematographic appearance an:
1/5
