Nicolas Winding Refn damns those awaiting his return with the ephemeral dud Her Private Hell

The tower’s bland yet ostentatious setting is contrasted with cheap looking, crystalline sets evocative of 1960s TV shows (or Matthew Rankin’s bizarre but engaging The Twentieth Century). The narrative is barely drawn, with the characters engaged in moments of prodding passive-aggression or mild bouts of incestuous attraction, the dialogue stilted and simplistic. The story drifts between various elements including the shooting of laser beams on the set of a comic book adaptation and the Hitchcockian, voyeuristic view of a neighboring bout of ultraviolence.   

Emphasizing mood over narrative, Her Private Hell does offer moments that shine within the otherwise disjointed frustration. Melton’s features are captured in particularly captivating fashion, and while he doesn’t have a lot to do, there’s clearly enough there on screen. Similarly, while the characters of Elle and Hunter are far too petulant to have any sympathy for, Liu’s take on Dominique interrupts frigidity with bouts of explosive hysteria, her hot-and-cold demeanor fitfully matching the blue and pink of the film’s main palette.

Which brings one back to Donnagio’s music, as well as the rest of the aural landscape crafted by Kristian Eidnes Andersen. While the imagery is often half-baked and the acting broad and silly, the music anchors the emotionality with romantic realism, and the various sounds—from the clacking of high heels on the granite floor, to the film’s most cathartic sonic feat (where a belt is brought down on the back of one character with a thwack as satisfying as the whip-crack and handgun shots in Raiders Of The Lost Ark)—are satisfyingly grounded.

Refn’s return to the big screen is welcome, and his surrealistic shtick, honed lately on experimental shows for the streamers, will certainly find an audience to embrace his latest flight of fancy. On the one hand this is the work of ambition, on the other it feels somewhat lazy, as if actually giving a damn about crafting a compelling script was too much of an ask, as a truly compelling narrative would somehow take away from the gaudy visuals and gormless characters.

Refn’s previous works are far more worthy of defense, and Her Private Hell fails for the most part in ways not even interesting enough to engender cultish fascination—neither exceptional nor truly egregious. There’s still evidence of his sardonic wit and stylistic flourishes but, save for brief blasts of cool brilliance, the film is for the most part a dud, as floaty and ephemeral as the fading mist that passes for one of the film’s central menaces.

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Writer: Nicolas Winding Refn, Esti Giordani
Starring: Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu, Kristine Froseth, Dougray Scott, Diego Calva, Shioli Kutsuna, Aoi Yamada, Hidetoshi Nishijima
Release Date: July 24, 2026