Elle Fanning

  • All the Bright Places (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, December 2021) As far as teen romances go, All the Bright Places is lighter on comedy and heavier on tragedy. Going for the star-crossed lovers angle in Midwestern small town, it quickly introduces a moody high-schooler still mourning the death of her sister, but also a strangely ebullient young man who deliberately sets out to befriend her. Neither of them are quite normal, and that’s what makes their relationship work—at least for a chunk of the film. Among other strange sights offered director Brett Haley, we’re treated to a visit to the highest point in Indiana, an incredibly ordinary spot in a forest that is actually the real (charmingly underwhelming) deal. That, and a quaintly micro-sized rollercoaster, are probably the high notes of a film that otherwise plays to the “tragic doomed teenage love” tropes. How you react to the film will depend on how strongly to react to that formula — it’s a fair and not unkind bet that the closer you are to these characters, the better you will react to the result. Elle Fanning is not bad in the female lead role, but it’s Justice Smith who’s got a flashier and more interesting character — a bright young man with glib charm but deep dark depths. He not only takes her out of her funk, but makes the film far more interesting for viewers as well. Otherwise, All the Bright Places feels like another unit on the YA tragic romance assembly line — a chance for young actors to show their stuff, a chance for today’s teenagers to form a canon of formative movies, but not particularly interesting to anyone else.

  • The Beguiled (2017)

    The Beguiled (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2018) By now, Sofia Coppola’s female-centric, soft gauze, slow-pacing, contemplative style almost defies parody. But it happens to be the correct approach for this remake of The Beguiled, in which a wounded soldier comes to rest at an isolated house entirely peopled by women. The presence of a man in an otherwise all-female environment is a recipe for disaster, and the film follows this to the expected conclusion. Hugh Jackman is featured as the soldier, but he’s outclassed by Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning. It’s not much of a story, but it’s deliberately told with plenty of atmosphere. It may not be to everyone’s liking, but it’s competent and daring enough to create discussions as to who, if anyone, was in the right here. I’d like to have more to say about it, but The Beguiled is the kind of film that can only be taken in, not picked apart.

  • The Neon Demon (2016)

    The Neon Demon (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2016) Had The Neon Demon been my first Nicolas Winding Refn film, I would have been furious at the downbeat fuzzy-plot nature of the movie. (Or maybe not—over the past few years, I’ve grown remarkably tolerant of movies that don’t put plot first.) But after Drive and most specifically Only God Forgives, I think I’ve learned to put Refn in a box alongside David Lynch: Visually spectacular movies with interesting set pieces but not necessarily a plot worth caring about. Expectation thus tempered, I was able to tolerate much of The Neon Demon without too much trouble … although, if scratched, I will admit that there’s a frustrating quality to the way The Neon Demon gets so close to having an intelligible story (fantastic or allegoric?), only to throw its chance away in a fit of artiness. In five-minute segments, though, the film is tolerable as it tracks the story of a new girl trying to make it in Hollywood. A fable about the exploitation of bodies in image-obsessed Los Angeles, The Neon Demon doesn’t try to stake out new ideas, but it does feature stylist cinematography, grotesque jumps into horror and an overall atmosphere of beautiful dread. Elle Fanning is OK as the deer-in-a-headlight protagonist, but Jena Malone steals her scenes as a makeup-artist-by-day, lesbian-necrophiliac-vampire-by-night. (Or is she?) Keanu Reeves memorably shows up as a menacing presence. Still, it’s Refn’s work as a visual stylist that remains most notable here and is most likely to remain in mind even as the insubstantial story wafts away unwanted. The Neon Demon is not for everyone (Even after the acclaimed Drive, Refn seems resolutely uninterested in mainstream appeal), but at least I’ll concede that it felt slightly less irrelevant as Only God Forgives.