Before his long awaited return to the big screen, I often found myself admiring the work of Nicolas Winding Refn more than truly connecting with it. Even as someone who doesn't outright dislike any of his films, I've long felt that his more commercially accessible work like Drive and, my personal favorite, The Neon Demon struck the best balance between his intoxicating visual style and something more emotionally tangible. I've spent hours watching his films trying to tune into the peculiar wavelength Refn broadcasts on, convinced there’s something fascinating hiding beneath all the neon-soaked colors, silence, and violent provocation. Her Private Hell finally feels like the moment where that signal came through loud and clear.
Marking Refn's first feature film in a decade, Her Private Hell is exactly the kind of uncompromising fever dream longtime fans have been missing, and exactly the kind of movie that will leave everyone else wondering what on earth they just watched. It's a giallo soaked in leather, fog, and fluorescent colors, where dream logic always takes precedence over narrative clarity. Trying to explain every detail would be missing the point. This is a film designed to be experienced rather than solved.
The story follows Elle (Sophie Thatcher), a troubled young woman searching for purpose in a gilded cage. In her case, it’s a luxurious penthouse of sorts owned by her father, Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott), which she shares with other women such as best-friend-turned-stepmother Dominique (Havana Rose Liu) and attention-starved newcomer Hunter (Kristine Froseth). An unnatural mist consumes the city, which signals the terrifying return of a femicidal murderer that’s spoken of as if urban legend.
At the same time down in the streets below, American soldier Private K (Charles Melton) desperately searches for his long missing daughter, navigating an increasingly violent criminal underworld where women continue to disappear. Armed only with a set of brass knuckles, a switchblade, and his vengeful, robotic drive, Private K is a man on a mission, but it’s one that only seems to grow increasingly futile. The two seemingly disparate plots of K and Elle eventually collide, and along the way, Refn folds in psychosexual family drama, doomed desire, a serial killer clad in leather, and even a delightfully bizarre movie-within-the-movie sci-fi production that somehow feels perfectly at home alongside everything else.
As with much of Refn's work, the narrative frequently drifts into abstraction. Characters speak in unusual theatrical cadences, conversations feel disconnected from reality, and motivations often exist more as emotional impulses than logical developments. Normally, that's where I start to lose my grip on his films - style over substance, if you will. Here, though, the atmosphere is so lush and hypnotic, that I found myself happily surrendering to it. The characters of Ms T (Shioli Kutsuna) and Ms S (Aoi Yamada) perhaps best exemplify the poetic surrealness that the film is going for, with the former embodying words while the latter embodies movement.
Shot by Magnus Nordenhof Jønck (Psycho Killer, The Assessment), every frame of Her Private Hell is breathtaking. Between the endless curtains of mist, the striking makeup and costume design (led by Louise Brunn and Jane Whittaker, respectively), and some of the most stunning color compositions of Refn's career, this is easily one of the year's most visually arresting films. Rather than trying to recreate reality, the city exists as a heightened nightmare; a place that never quite feels tangible but always feels emotionally true. It's unmistakably influenced by Italian giallo cinema, yet it never feels like empty imitation. Credit where credit is due to production designer Gitte Malling (Copenhagen Cowboy) and the rest of the crew. This isn't a movie borrowing the aesthetic; it fully embraces the genre's intoxicating blend of eroticism, horror, melodrama, and surrealism.
Much of that hypnotic quality comes from the legendary Pino Donaggio's magnificent score. Trading Refn's usual electronic soundscapes for lush orchestral compositions proves to be an inspired decision. The music doesn't simply accompany the imagery, it guides it, swelling through scenes of longing, violence, and tragedy with overwhelming, operatic emotional force. It's immediately one of the year's finest film scores and arguably the not-so-secret ingredient that ties together Refn's otherwise fragmented storytelling. Even if you can’t get onboard with the film itself, Donaggio’s incredible music is a piece of fine art to be engaged with on its own.
Sophie Thatcher (Companion, Heretic, Yellowjackets) continues to prove she's one of the most compelling young performers working today. Elle is a difficult character to fully understand, but Thatcher grounds her with a vulnerability and quiet ferociousness that slowly emerges beneath all the artifice. By the film's devastating final stretch, her emotional collapse becomes surprisingly affecting, delivering some of the strongest work of her already fascinating career. Her Private Hell slots neatly into Thatcher’s artistic sensibilities.
Charles Melton (Warfare, Beef, May December), meanwhile, is simply magnetic as Private K. Melton has a face that seems tailor-made for the big screen, and Refn photographs him like a mythological figure wandering through purgatory. It’s impossible to look away whenever he's shot in close up. His brutal fight sequences rank among the film's biggest highlights, delivering sudden explosions of graphic violence that recall Refn's earlier work while still fitting seamlessly within this dreamlike world. One can only hope we continue to see more of Melton in leading roles like this in the future.
All that praise isn't to say Her Private Hell suddenly transforms Refn into a conventional storyteller. Far from it. The pacing is deliberately languid, many scenes exist purely to cultivate mood, and large portions of the film remain frustratingly opaque. Viewers who might be expecting or hoping for another straightforward thriller like Drive will almost certainly bounce off its cryptic storytelling and unapologetic indulgence. But at this point, that's hardly a criticism of the filmmaker. Refn knows exactly what kind of movie he's making.
What surprised me most is how emotionally resonant Her Private Hell ultimately becomes. Beneath all the leather, blood, neon, and psychosexual imagery lies a deeply melancholic story about longing, fractured families, unattainable love, and people desperately reaching for connections that always seem just beyond their grasp. Whether every symbol means exactly what you think it does almost becomes irrelevant. Like remembering a vivid dream days later, what lingers isn't the plot but the feeling.
I still couldn't tell you with complete confidence exactly what Her Private Hell is "about." I'm not convinced Refn particularly wants us to. What I do know is that this feels like the purest realization of his artistic identity - a film where his eccentricities, influences, and obsessions finally converge into something hauntingly beautiful. It won't be for everyone, and it honestly probably isn't even for most people. But if you're willing to surrender yourself to its strange, mist-covered frequency, Her Private Hell offers one of the year's most singular and rewarding cinematic experiences. I'll be wrestling with its images long after the credits rolled, and I suspect that's exactly how Refn intended it.
‘Her Private Hell’ is now playing in theaters.
