What even is post-narrative cinema? And what is Nicolas Winding Refn up to in Her Private Hell, an example, so he says, of a type of cinematic production taking its cues from social media?
I will try to run through the plot, though it might be easier to say what Refn left out rather than what he put in. He doomscrolls his way through a film packed with incident and influence, references and oblique takes on genre. This starts with Sophie Thatcher’s Elle stalking her way down a film-noir road, a 1940s femme fatale accompanied by smoke and Wagnerian brass. She’s playing an actress en route to meeting a fellow thespian, Hunter (Kristine Froseth), who’s come up via the influencer route (disdain from Elle). Eventually these two wind up with Dominique (Havana Rose Liu), an old friend of Elle’s who’s now married to Elle’s self-loving father, film-maker Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott). Incidentally, Hunter and Elle might be sisters, since Johnny has been putting it about his whole life. Either way, before long Elle and Hunter are starring in Johnny’s film together, along with Dominique, where they meet Private K (Charles Melton), an actor with a tragic past.
Forget Johnny, beyond introducing the idea of Leatherface (a character from Johnny’s film who might also exist in the “real world”) and a younger rival in the studmuffin stakes called Nico (Diego Calva), he’s not that important. Refn is more interested in the awkward interactions of Elle, Hunter and Dominique – a trio of a fairytale stripe, two babes in the wood and a wicked stepmother. Refn winds these three into a story set in a reality-adjacent Tokyo that’s Dario Argento meets comicbook versions of King Lear, Oedipus Rex and The Shining, Star Trek as David Lynch faces off against Wong Kar-Wai and Franz Kafka.
Fairytale meets old cinema is the predominant vibe as Elle and co bounce through a funfair ride of barely connected scenarios, though Refn really seems to want to be making a giallo telenovella full of histrionic acting and implausible plotting.
You watch it and have a go if you think I’m not being helpful. What I can tell you is that Refn has caught his three leads – Froseth, Thatcher and Liu – right at that exact moment when their ship has come in. Thatcher you may know from doorstepping-Mormons horror Heretic (with Chloe East and Hugh Grant), Froseth from Lena Dunham’s modern-life-is-shit grand-guignol drama Sharp Stick, or Netflix’s teen-survivalist drama The Society, and Liu from almost everything else – she’s been excellent as a brutal PA in Lurker, as a talented pianist in Tuner and is excellent again here as a fairytale baddie who might not be all that bad.
Thatcher, Froseth and Liu give it their best shot at making this more than just a series of scenes of sexy, sulky people in one neon-garish setting after another. The supposed thread – K’s search for the aforementioned Leatherman – gets short shrift.
Doomscrolling is all well and good, and while it is not that fulfilling, it does at least command the attention of the person doing it. But imagine watching someone else’s couple of hours of doomscrolling. How twitchy and “give it here… no, go back a bit…” would you get? That’s what Refn gives us: curated doomscrolling – I suppose you cannot blame a man for trying.
And that’s what this film is… trying, in a good and bad sense. Stylish as hell, as good-looking as it comes, and with music by the legendary Pino Donaggio, who did the scores for Don’t Look Now, the originals of Carrie and Piranha, it is an all-you-can-eat buffet of lovely things, held together conceptually by Refn’s “post-narrative” posturing. Not held together at all, in other words. Good luck with it.
Her Private Hell – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
