Review - Her Private Hell

Starring Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu, Kristine Froseth. Screenplay by Esti Giordani and Nicolas Winding Refn. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Rated R. 109 minutes. In theaters.

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“Her Private Hell” is absolutely terrible, but maybe also kind of great? The first film in a decade from bratty Danish provocateur Nicolas Winding Refn is a profoundly alienating experience. It’s such a stultifying anti-entertainment for the ages that I can only assume distributor NEON is opening the film in shopping mall multiplexes as an expensive act of trolling. You can never really be sure when the pokerfaced Refn is kidding, and for all we know, his critically lambasted return to the big screen might be an elaborate prank on audiences and auteurists alike. To watch the picture is to be submerged in its droning atmospherics to an almost stuporous effect. You feel your senses being dulled as it goes along, returning to reality after the closing credits in a thick-witted daze. I hated sitting through this movie, and yet a couple days later, I find myself weirdly respecting it.