Her Private Hell review: An endurance test for all but the most devoted Nicolas Winding Refn fanatics

This article was originally published from the Cannes Film Festival on 20 May 2026

With a typically provocative title like Her Private Hell, Nicolas Winding Refn returns to feature films after a decade's absence. Premiering in an out-of-competition slot at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, this latest NWR – as he now insists on branding himself – outpouring is the ultimate Marmite movie. Some will love it, especially if you enjoy wallowing in genre mash-ups, sci-fi horror and Japanese fetishism. Many will hate it.

Refn’s last film, 2016’s The Neon Demon, sunk into the world of an aspiring fashion model, played by Elle Fanning. Since then, he’s been locked in the streaming universe, creating two semi-impenetrable series, the Prime Video tale Too Old To Die Young (2018), with Miles Teller, and the Netflix show Copenhagen Cowboy (2023). This latest opus borrows heavily from both.

Compared to his grittier early films – the Pusher trilogy, Bronson and Valhalla Rising among them – Refn has increasingly valued style over substance, to an infuriating degree. His greatest triumph, 2011’s Drive, which won Best Director in Cannes, struck the perfect balance between the two. But he’s become increasingly all about sinking audiences into an ‘experience’, where you simply have to relax into an ultra-stylised universe where characters speak in gnomic riddles.

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Her Private Hell feels like a companion to The Neon Demon, albeit nowhere near as engaging. Sophie Thatcher plays Elle, an actress who is shooting her latest film Candy Floss, a clunky-looking retro sci-fi. Alongside her, in a glitzy futuristic-looking hotel, is Dominique (Havana Rose Liu), who is roughly her own age but also her stepmother. Her father, meanwhile, is the amusingly named movie exec Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott).

Set in a mist-shrouded metropolis, quite vividly realised by cinematographer Magnus Nordenhof Jonck, Refn’s film is gorgeous to look at. But don’t expect anything resembling a plot. Before long, we’ve switched to Private K (Charles Melton), an American GI who is looking for his daughter. Oh, and there’s a demonic presence, known only as the Leather Man, prowling the streets on a mission to slaughter vulnerable victims.

If you’re happy to let Refn ease you into this world, you’ll likely admire the textures of this hellscape, co-written with the director by Esti Giordani. Certainly, those into Japanese culture will get a kick out of the film’s stand-out scene as Private K faces off with a bunch of yakuza, Kill Bill style. Almost expressionless throughout, Melton (Glee, Beef) looks super cool, dressed in military uniforms and the like. Being a Refn muse won’t do his career any harm.

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There’s plenty of violence, especially as K plunges a knife through one sumo-style assailant’s hand and then into his eye socket. But the black humour from The Neon Demon is almost entirely absent, as characters lounge around with making empty pronouncements. Diego Calva, who played Hugh Laurie’s disgruntled son in the 2026-released second season of The Night Manager, gets one tantalising scene, but then we see no more of him.

Refn’s ability to create startling images remains, but with zero tension – or even any interest in creating tension – it’s like watching a moving canvas. Fabulous for a moment, but then you’ll likely want to move on to a more fulfilling artistic experience. Perhaps it’s no surprise to learn that Refn’s been working for Prada, creating elaborate mini movies; his aesthetic seems entirely suited to fashion.

Even at 107 minutes, Her Private Hell may well feel like your private hell, an endurance test for all but the most devoted NWR fanatics. It’s sexy, sick and stylish, which is no doubt how he intended it, but a pretentious and laborious B movie without any real, so to speak, drive.

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