Vox Lux review round-up: Natalie Portman is 'a powerful, haunting presence' in this 'grandly ambitious' satire

In 2010, Natalie Portman opened the Venice Film Festival as a tormented ballerina in Black Swan - a role which earned her an Oscar. She is back this time with Vox Lux , as a brattish pop star with a troubled past. Portman’s character, Celeste, played as a 14-year-old girl by Raffey Cassidy, has her life transformed by a school shooting that leaves her wounded and psychologically scarred. A song Celeste plays at a televised memorial for the dead propels her to fame, condemning the sweet young girl to grow up into an infantilised pop princess, managed by Jude Law. [caption id=“attachment_5136361” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Natalie Portman and Raffey Cassidy on set of Vox Lux. Image via Facebook[/caption] Speaking ahead of its world premiere, Portman said Vox Lux was “a portrait and a reflection of our society and this sort of intersection of pop culture and violence and the spectacle that we equate between the two”. Writer-director Brady Corbet, who won prizes in Venice in 2015 for his debut The Childhood of a Leader, said Portman’s character was “really not designed to be a monster at all”. With songs composed by Australian singer-songwriter Sia , Vox Lux is one of 21 films vying for the Golden Lion which will be awarded in Venice on 8 September. Here’s what the critics are saying: _ Variety: “_Powered in its second half by a riveting performance of fiercely mannered bravado by Natalie Portman, as a kamikaze electropop diva running her Faustian fame off and under the rails, Vox Lux paints a sharp, shellacked portrait of a ghost in the celebrity machine.” _ The Hollywood Reporter: “_The joyous spectacle of Natalie Portman throwing weapons-grade bitch-queen tantrums is just one of the guilty pleasures in actor-turned-director Brady Corbet’s stylish, original and ambitious second feature.” The Guardian: “A school shooting, a teen pop idol and Portman’s jaded diva raise questions about fame and notoriety in Brady Corbet’s social satire.” Screen Daily: “Vox Lux is so grandly ambitious, so unabashedly its own experience, that it’s impossible to dismiss despite its flaws.” IndieWire: “Vox Lux is a powerful, haunting film in part because Portman is a powerful, haunting presence — you can’t turn away from her, even if you occasionally want to…Vox Lux is intellectually charged spectacle, with one foot in the Euro-art tradition and the other ankle-deep in the pop zeitgeist.”

(With inputs from Reuters)