EL SEGUNDO HERALD December 6, 2018 Page 3
Film Review
Vox Lux: Pop Goes the World
By Ryan Rojas for www.cinemacy.com
Listening to pop songs brings about a
rush of feel-good happiness to listeners,
but when thinking of it as an engineered
product of an industry, it might also be seen as
a highly-concentrated construction of fantasy for
consumers to buy into for momentary escape.
This relationship between the artificiality of
pop music and the culture that empowers it, is
what director Brady Corbet explores in his new
movie Vox Lux -- a fictional portrait of a pop
star set in modern America. With bold and
unflinching storytelling, as well as mesmerizing
visuals and performances, Vox Lux is one of
the most powerful films I’ve seen this year.
Vox Lux is a portrait of the rise of a pop star,
but that’s largely just the story that allows the
movie to act as a mirror of this 21st century
America where entertainment, image and pop
culture hold all value. Vox Lux has a storybooklike
quality, where meta elements such as its
three chapter structure and omniscient narration
by Willem Dafoe give it lyrical quality. However,
that also includes its significantly darker tone
(which audiences should brace themselves
for as seen in the film’s opening sequences).
Our future pop star – young Celeste (Raffey
Cassidy) – is born from darkness. After
being the sole survivor of a horrific and
deadly rampage, the soft-spoken New Jersey
native is thrust into the national spotlight as
the face of a nation’s sorrow and strength.
Poised and collected, we see that Celeste not
only has words of honest strength to share,
Entertainment
but music in her heart as well. An original
song co-written by her sister Eleanor (Stacy
Martin) soon becomes a national anthem to a
grieving and shaken country. With the guidance
of a new manager (Jude Law), Celeste and her
sister are introduced to a whole new world of
entertainment and all that it brings.
We see young Celeste go through the ropes –
recording in the studio, dealing with her publicist
(Jennifer Ehle), and further entrenching herself
in the debauchery of the industry, but it’s when
Vox Lux jumps years ahead that we find presentday
Celeste (Natalie Portman). Now she is no
longer a novice of the pop music machine, but
its biggest superstar. And although years have
passed, the film plants us back into now on
the day of another horrific rampage, sending a
tour-bound Celeste back into national headlines
through comments to reporters (Christopher
Abbott). We’ve seen Portman embrace
against-type roles before, including her
Best Actress award-winning performance in
Black Swan, but in Vox Lux she is a full-on
diva playing every bit the self-obsessed celebrity
who is manic in ego and as drug-dependent as
one can imagine. It’s a terrific performance that
sees Portman play the full range of pop star
and should be remembered this awards season.
Audiences should be warned beforehand
that Vox Lux depicts horrific events in vivid
detail. Rampages with firearms are shocking,
but only serve to show what it is that pop
music tries to do – which is what young
Celeste wisely notes: “I make pop music to
make people feel good.”
110 min. Vox Lux is rated R for language,
some strong violence, and drug content. Opening
this Friday at ArcLight Hollywood and AMC
Century City. •
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Courtesy of NEON.
Ryan Rojas.
Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces by
Michael Chabon
Reviewed by Kristina Kora-Beckman,
Librarian, El Segundo Public Library
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and father of
four Michael Chabon’s latest, Pops: Fatherhood
in Pieces, is a collection of essays about
the complexities of fatherhood. Central to the
short collection is a story Chabon wrote for GQ
magazine about accompanying his adolescent
son Abe to Paris Men’s Fashion Week in 2016.
Abe is in his element, thoroughly enjoying all
the shows have to offer while his “minder”
(Chabon) literally and figuratively trails behind
attempting to make sense of the spectacle and
how best to support his young charge.
In the collection, Chabon explores his own
complicated relationship with his father and
how it affects his parenting decisions. He also
muses about the effect raising children has on
a writing career and benefits and sacrifices he
personally experienced as a result. I appreciated
Chabon’s humor, insights and vulnerability as
he discusses the challenges of raising independent,
confident, caring children who can
freely explore their individual passions.
To check out Pops, or browse more titles by
Chabon, please visit the library to apply for your
free library card. For more parenting contemplations
and advice, stop by our 306 non-fiction
section. Not sure where that is? Come see us at
the Information desk and we’d be happy to show
you or help you find titles on other topics! •
Check It Out
Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces by Michael Chabon.
Kristina Kora-Beckman.
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