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Of all the strangeness that weaves through "The Neon Demon" — director Nicolas Winding Refn's sleek, surreal take on the ruthlessness of the fashion industry — the strangest thing is that one could walk away from it and be ambivalent.
Refn, after all, is the Danish bad boy whose last two movies served up the viscerally powerful "Drive" and the frustratingly obtuse "Only God Forgives," both starring Ryan Gosling. This time, Refn has wrapped his dark, bloody story in so much gloss and glitter that it pleases the eye and stimulates the brain, but doesn't engage the emotions. For a director who usually evokes a more definitive response — love it or hate it, but don't ignore it — that's something of a letdown.
Rein trains his gaze on Jesse (Elle Fanning), a 16-year-old fashion model just landed in Los Angeles. Her new agent (Christina Hendricks) tells her to tell people she's 19 and to stop working with amateur photographers, like her nice-guy sorta-boyfriend Dean (Karl Glusman, from Gaspar Noë's "Love").
The agent gets Jesse a session with the best in the business, Jack (Desmond Harrington), who immediately has her strip naked and slathers her in gold body paint. Jack sees that Jesse has that indefinable "it" that separates top models from merely pretty young women.
Ruby (Jena Malone) also sees Jesse has "it." Ruby is a freelance makeup artist, with a day job prettying up corpses at a mortuary, who takes Jesse under her wing. Ruby introduces Jesse to two veteran models: Sarah (Abbey Lee), a witch in heels, and Gigi (Bella Heathcote), who proudly recounts all the plastic surgeries she's had to get her closer to perfection.
As Jesse plunges deeper in the fashion world, we soon see that everybody — from a high-powered fashion designer (Alessandro Nivola) to the manager (Keanu Reeves) of the fleabag Pasadena motel where Jesse is living — desires what she has. "Beauty isn't everything," Nivola's character declares. "It's the only thing."
But as Jesse's life spirals downward, Refn takes a turn from the bizarre to the gruesome — taking the view of an industry that chews up beautiful girls and spits them out beyond the metaphorical.
Certainly Refn serves up plenty of raw meat for his audience, with arresting visuals that evoke the demon spawn of George Romero and Vogue editor Anna Wintour. He even succumbs to the allure of fashion-world branding, putting his initials, NWR, on the opening credits in the style of Yves Saint Laurent's iconic logo.
But the exercise of watching this gorgeous yet gory drama remains an intellectual one. A viewer may admire Refn's stark images, or be captivated by the tabula rasa affect of Fanning's ingenue performance, but "The Neon Demon" gives off a cool light that fails to grab us emotionally.
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'The Neon Demon'
Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn's surreal take on the fashion world is sleek, stunning and surprisingly sterile.
Where • Area theaters.
When • Opens Friday, June 24.
Rating • R for disturbing violent content, bloody images, graphic nudity, a scene of aberrant sexuality, and language.
Running time • 117 minutes.