Throughout her extensive career, Natalie Portman has played a plethora of intriguing, complex roles, often giving many of these performances in the same year. In 2018, Portman stepped into one of her most interesting roles yet: a resilient pop star. Vox Lux, directed by Brady Corbet and also starring Jude Law and Raffey Cassidy, follows a young girl, Celeste (Cassidy), as she rises to fame in the music industry after experiencing a tragedy. She eventually grows into an adult (Portman), yet struggles with all the dark aspects of fame.
While the film was met with favorable reviews, it is too overlooked for its compelling portrayal of growing up famous, crime-inspired art, artists as commodities, and so much more. At the crux of these thought-provoking themes is a complex woman artist that goes beyond a surface-level portrayal, following her significant changes from teenage to adulthood. Between the impressive cast, tackling of difficult topics, its Lady Gaga-esque makeup design and musical moments (the latter courtesy of Sia), and so much more, this Natalie Portman film deserves a place next to all the best musician-centered stories out there. Tonight will see the TV premiere of the simultaneously anticipated and dreaded series The Idol on HBO amidst the appalled reviews, which call out its hypocritical portrayal of the exploitative nature of voyeurism and the entertainment industry. Vox Lux, on the other hand, sheds light on a woman pop star in a way that is thought-provoking, not sensationalized.
'Vox Lux' Doesn't Shy Away From Celeste's Trauma
Some of the more unique qualities of Vox Lux are in its ability to be unexpected and unafraid in a way that is not exploitative. This is obvious in the way that the main character, Celeste, is portrayed on the screen. While she experiences many tragic moments from a young age, the camera never revels in her suffering. After 13-year-old Celeste, played by Cassidy, gets injured in a school shooting carried out by a fellow student (Logan Riley Bruner), she begins to make music during her recovery with her sister Eleanor (Stacy Martin), who had strong musical aspirations. This quickly leads to the young singer getting signed by a manager (Law) after performing an original song at a memorial and a video of it goes viral.
The film, as well as Celeste's success, takes off pretty quickly. Suddenly, everyone knows the 13-year-old's name, without her getting the chance to process what happened at her school. This is obvious whenever Young Celeste seems to get one career win after another without expressing any sort of emotion about it. She is neither shocked nor excited, but rather numb, and rarely has anything to say about it. Moments and emotions that are unspoken are what Vox Lux do best. Viewers watch as Celeste seems to frequently leave her body and go through the motions for obvious reasons, as well as some other unknown explanation that viewers do not get until the end of the film. The tragedy at the beginning of the film is barely talked about but rather ignored by everyone who is responsible for young Celeste. Even though it remains unspoken, the audience knows she is in shock, yet her circle remains unhelpful.
Flashing forward to 2017, Portman takes over the character of Celeste as the adult version. The older Celeste is clearly changed by fame and the industry as the character goes in a completely different direction. However, an underlying factor in Celeste's erratic behavior is a recent shooting in Croatia, in which those involved were wearing the sparkly, futuristic masks featured in Celeste's first music video. No one seems to think how a shooting connected to Celeste and her music may affect her. Instead, everyone treats her as the pop persona — even her sister, who sends her out on a stage in front of thousands of people without thinking about how this could be another threat to Celeste's life. This is barely acknowledged by her team, and Celeste masks her fear throughout most of the second act of the film. Even when she is on stage, she almost seems to leave her body again, similar to how she reacted to her newfound fame as a kid. The final concert sequence is how Portman connects the younger and older versions of the character, performing with a similar part-faux toughness and part-deer-in-the-headlights.
Vox Lux also explores violence that is seemingly "inspired" by various forms of art, something we are all too familiar with. Whether those who committed the shooting in the second half of the film wore the masks from the music video because of Celeste's past is unclear, but certainly a possibility. While her immediate launch to stardom and early exposure to the music industry had a negative impact on her, it was also the lack of initial support for Celeste following what happened at her school. Rather than be there for the 13-year-old, there was much more of an attempt to display Celeste's talent, as well as the emotion that made her performance at the memorial so powerful. No one felt compelled to tell her that she did not have to continue her career if she had too much on her plate or step out on the stage at the end of the film. This is how Vox Lux succeeds in only a few words, attributing the events of the film to trends we have seen with pop stars too many times. There is no intense care for the person, but rather the monetary potential they have.
'Vox Lux' Doesn't Glamorize Exploitation in the Music Industry
In terms of films following musicians and the music industry, one trap that is easy to fall into is the glamorization of spiraling singers. Through the writing of Celeste and the actresses' portrayals, the film reminds the audience that she is navigating her new life alone and that there is no getting used to it. A young Celeste falls into every horror of fame and the music industry imaginable. On top of that, the last thing Celeste needed was fame. Yet barely any time goes by before being signed with a manager and leaving for New York City to begin recording more music and making videos. The film emphasizes the silence of those around Celeste by filling it with her younger self standing alone in a recording booth or rehearsing dance routines in the big studio. No one, not even her family, steps in to say, "Maybe not now." The performance that got Celeste famous was her paying tribute to her lost classmates, and yet it immediately becomes commodified by older, powerful people. Both a younger and older Celeste is very clearly struggling, yet no one seems to care. Rather, there is more care to be had toward her first music video as her career picks up even more quickly.
The film also strategically shows us how Celeste's career changed her by giving a younger and older portrayal of the same character. The older Celeste is much more talkative and has further lost her sense of reality, often going off on tangents to the tune of her daughter's confused face. Albertine's guardian is not Celeste but an older Eleanor. Celeste is now playing shows for 30,000 people but is also struggling with drug addiction, having permanently lost sight in one of her eyes from drinking a copious amount of cleaning supplies. This Celeste is not as timid and is much more outspoken and rash, lashing out at reporters and verbally degrading her own sister.
Vox Lux, in comparison to other similar films, stays away from the glamorous route and is fairly grounded in reality. The tone is dark throughout the film and rarely lets up. The industry sexualizes a young Celeste, but the camera does not, which is an obvious difference. It never feels like Celeste is a fictional character in a film, but rather like a struggling famous person that we have seen time and time again in real life. One scene, in particular, sees Celeste in a vulnerable, emotional moment. She screams in her dressing room, desperate to be treated as a real person, something we have not seen since the very beginning of the film. She knows she is not a person, but rather a performer.
'Vox Lux' Asks If Fame Is Worth It
One of the most prominent, running themes of Vox Lux is the cost of fame and whether it is all worth it. The most intriguing part of the film's exploration of this does not come until the last few minutes of the film. We learn via the narrator (Willem Dafoe) that while Celeste was in between life and death after the violent incident at school, she was posed a deal for her life by the devil himself. This also gives another explanation for why she seems so unfazed about her new career in the first act of the film since she was apparently expecting and ready for it. While Celeste got to live, it came at a substantial price. This deal affected her sister, who was initially set up to be the most gifted of the two, and who one would initially think was destined for fame. Eleanor, now seemingly jealous of Celeste's career and potentially fearful of the deal she made, does not care for Celeste more than anyone else. The film is somehow able to add more mystery after giving a straightforward answer for Celeste's success, and plays into the myth that many believe of people literally selling their souls to "make it." Ending the story this way, viewers realize the film was asking all along, "Is it worth it?"
Why 'Vox Lux' Stands Out Among Pop Star Films
Ultimately, the biggest success of the film is the character of Celeste. She is a pop star that got a start at a young age, something we have all seen the ending of many times. She embodies many stages of life and fame simultaneously, as well as remaining a person underneath the facade that no one but the audience really cares to see. Putting a complex character as both a young girl and a fame-impacted woman makes the tell-tale story of a fallen pop star feel much more personal than what can be read in the news.
One of the most important aspects of the film, however, is the lack of grotesque leering and staring as a girl spirals into a world of drugs and fame. Through placing emphasis on how the events of Celeste's life have affected her, this film also actively excludes the glamorization that is typically seen in movies about famous musicians and the industry. Ahead of The Idol's release, the more negative comments from critics have mentioned how its woman pop star and her story have been poorly handled, exploiting her mental health through the perspective of the male gaze. What makes Vox Lux different is exactly that. The film makes it clear that Celeste is struggling mentally with her past and her new reality. She is taken advantage of by everyone around her, yet the camera does not exploit her physically or emotionally. There is complexity and emotion in the way Celeste breaks down on the screen or seems to disassociate during performances. Leaving out the "sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll" aspect, the film tells us that this story is much more than a game or spectacle, and puts the mirror up at the overwhelming neglect of both young people in entertainment and those impacted by violence.