Her Private Hell marks the long-awaited return of Nicolas Winding Refn to the big screen.
Her Private Hell is a monumental failure by Nicolas Winding Refn
Wattractive His private hellI constantly thought of director Nicolas Winding Refn (NWR) and his notorious interview with William Friedkin.
At one point in the discussion, NWR references his own film Only God forgives as a “masterpiece”. Friedkin, visibly shaken, turns to the camera and mockingly shouts, “Is there a doctor in the house?” while a clearly irritated NWR tries in vain to support its own exaltations. Friedkin clearly had a lot of fun knocking NWR down a notch or two. I can only imagine the playful excoriation Friedkin allegedly gave NWR after watching His private hell.
There’s no real reason to sugarcoat it: His private hell is a bad movie. A very, VERY bad film, the kind of license-revoking material reminiscent of Friedkin’s. worse job-Exorcist to go out. If NWR was looking for its own Wizard Or Living and dying in Los Angeles, rather he offered the world his Cruise Or The deal of the century.
It’s hard to start Or this movie goes horribly wrong. This is perhaps the very first scene in the film, where we are introduced to Sophie Thatcher as she makes her way through a sort of Moloch-shaped cyberpunk cathedral bathed in blue and pink lights. It’s so banal and cliché that it almost seems His private hell is going to be a self-parody of NWR’s most famous works — To drive And The neon demonnotably. Alas, His private hell never becomes a glow-in-the-dark synthwave melodrama – instead, it seems content to simply linger in the negative celluloid space where almost nothing important happens. I’m not exaggerating when I say that at least half of the film, they’re just characters sitting in a room together, struggling to carry on a conversation that seems even vaguely human. To give you an idea of how bad NWR is writing female characters, there is a scene where the actresses completely stop talking and start bark at each other for a few minutes. At that moment I realized that NWR had having produced the film too – I can’t imagine someone else let something like that stay in the completed image.
The film may share its name with a 1968 British sexual exploitation film, but that’s where the similarities end. His private hell – as best I can describe it – is a sort of dystopian neo-giallo film about demonic sex dads, yakuza, and a semi-supernatural being who can only be killed by cutting off both of his hands. This looks like a can’t-miss prospect: the guy who created To drive make a Dario Argento film! – but I was shocked by the poor execution of all this. It’s a towering testament to the responsibilities of ego and what happens when autocratic directors with “vision” are left unchecked by the powers that be in the studio. It’s so bad that you want to go back and rewatch NWR’s most praised films and see if you were fake about those too. There’s bad, and then there’s “let’s re-evaluate this guy’s entire legacy just to be sure” bad. I don’t need to tell you where His private hell fits into this spectrum.
It’s a confusing movie but it’s actually one of lesser image problems. It’s painfully slow and dragging, with too many unnecessarily long and lingering shots that are there purely for “aesthetic” reasons. Sometimes NWR will just freeze on a character’s reaction and hold it for 20, 30 seconds at a time. I’m sure it sounded good in his head, but in real time it’s super boring stuff that makes you wonder if your WiFi went down or something. There’s a fine line between being artistically subversive and being a pretentious jerk – and, again, I think we all know where NWR is.
The dialogue is atrociousthe story is extremely difficult to follow and the set pieces are terribly disappointing. His private hell practically overdoses on bisexual lighting, with virtually every scene in the film awash in an eye-catching purplish hue. The film isn’t just lit like a fashion show, it’s more choreography in this way. It’s as if NWR wanted to film an entire movie at the pace and tempo of a Victoria’s Secret commercial. And yes, that’s a MUCH more apt description of the film than it should be – the male gaze is so lustful here that it makes Sucker punch it looks like an educational film made by 80 year old nuns. By the way, did I mention that the father, a sex demon in the film, is Also an avant-garde filmmaker? Nothing Freudian about it, of course.
I’m not even sure how to delve into the lowest points of the film. There is a laconic a gender switch that comes out of nowhere after about 30 minutes and it’s so shocking it’s literally laughable. The set design, bizarre as it is, also seems cheap and painstaking. The most action the film gives us is a flashback sequence in which an American GI fights a strangely skinny Sumo wrestler in a street fight. And as for the last 20 minutes of the film, I honestly I can’t tell you what’s supposed to happen. Just keep in mind that it involves people being gagged with panties, an ax attack, and something called “the Crystal Kingdom” – basically, a whole bunch of ideas that Never I should have gone from the first draft to full movie.
It might seem like I’m being too hard on His private hell but if anything, I’m probably too easy with that. I’m just calling it a bad movie, but I’m sure many viewers will see it as borderline. offensive A. It’s been a LONG time since I’ve seen a film about women made by someone with such appallingly poor knowledge of what women are like. In fact are like sentient human beings. Now I’m not personally calling it “the incel version of barbie”, but don’t hesitate to adopt it if you think it suits you.
His private hell was supposed to be NWR’s happy return to form, their big comeback after years of absence doing everything they’ve done for the last ten years. Instead, His private hell is one of the biggest cinematic disappointments of the year – and somewhere, in the greatest of unknowns, you can almost hear the spirit of William Friedkin laughing his spectral ass off.
TRY IT IF YOU LIKE: Women in polygonal bras, Harmony Korine’s worst films, seeing big-headed filmmakers fall flat on their faces
DIRECTOR: Nicolas Winding Refn
WRITER(S): Nicolas Winding Refn, Esti Giordani
WITH : Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu, Kristine Froseth
STUDIO: Neon, by NWR Originals
DISTRIBUTER: Neon
RUNNING DURATION: 110 minutes
LANGUAGE: English/Japanese
RELEASE DATE: July 24, 2026
