CANNES 2026 Out of Competition
Review: Her Private Hell
by Emma Kiely
- CANNES 2026: Nicolas Winding Refn returns to the Croisette after ten years, but this hollow horror sci-fi toplined by Sophie Thatcher is not worth the wait
Returning to Cannes (out of competition) ten years after the premiere of his last film, The Neon Demon, divided audiences but still earned a 17-minute standing ovation, Nicolas Winding Refn proves that old dogs can’t learn new tricks. His first flick in a decade, the sci-fi horror Her Private Hell, feels less like a movie from a stylistic auteur and more of a mockumentary of his work, exaggerating the tropes he holds sacred and doing little else to mould them into a complete film.
All the markers of a Winding Refn movie are here: misogynistic categorisations of women, vibrant but foggy visuals, and violent gore. The director, even after an extended break, remains steadfast in his objectifying, hollow portrayals of women to fulfil the most predictable of male fantasies.
In a cyberpunk-esque Tokyo, Elle (Sophie Thatcher) is a famous actress with a complicated relationship with her volatile father (Dougray Scott) and an even more conflicting dynamic with her best friend-turned-stepmother Dominique (Havana Rose Liu). Naive, giddy young actress Hunter (Kristine Froseth) comes to stay in their opulent penthouse as they all shoot their new film, further straining the tensions in the household. Elle’s anxiety is also exacerbated by a local serial killer named Leather Man, who kills beautiful young women by literally ripping their breasts apart. Meanwhile, broody army vet Private K (Charles Melton) is searching for his young daughter, pulling him into the violent network of the Yakuza.
It seems that Winding Refn is trying to dissect father-daughter relationships. But for a director who insists on depicting women as virginal daddy girls desperate for sex, the character study of Her Private Hell is non-existent. Instead, it’s full of repetitive interactions between the girls as they breathily moan the garbage dialogue, while Melton swaggers through the streets, never breaking his morose poise. While the emphasis on beauty and aesthetics worked for The Neon Demon’s commentary on vanity and envy, here, the characters are little more than adult Bratz dolls. The women’s mouths hang open, they sit and lie with their arses perfectly arched, and they bark and woof at each other like the little, begging dogs Winding Refn forces them to be. The helmer’s overarching depiction of women can be reduced down to a moment in Her Private Hell when a young lady screams, “Daddy!” with equal parts horror and eroticism as a masked man rips her tits apart and kills her.
The script sounds like it was written for a Blade Runner-inspired porno, and the visuals are just as derivative. While there are certainly some mesmerising shots of the pink, blue and purple fogs of this world, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. Ridley Scott, David Lynch and Denis Villeneuve have all done similar, stronger worldbuilding, and have achieved it with a decent script and developed characters. Winding Refn might have got away with this weak script if he’d delivered some truly revolutionary directing.
Thatcher gives her most emotive performance to date, and it fares a lot worse than her more pensive, subdued roles. The stilted script doesn’t do her any favours, but her attempt to transform Elle from moody and sullen into deranged and maniacal is jarringly unnaturalistic. The strongest player here is Havana Rose Liu, as Dominique is the sole character who resembles a real person. Her sobering presence cuts through the poetic ramblings of those around her, and her sharp delivery makes her dialogue not completely abhorrent. Melton is given little to do other than fight topless and look good, but he has a commanding presence that provides a glimpse into an interiority that Winding Refn’s writing fails to offer.
Her Private Hell is a US-Danish production staged by Winding Refn’s company, byNWR, algonside Neon, which also handles the international sales.
Photogallery 18/05/2026: Cannes 2026 - Her Private Hell
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