Playing a troubled pop star who mounts a comeback after a scandalous incident, the 'Black Swan' actress delivers her greatest performance to date.
- Oct 26, 2018
AceShowbiz - The first full trailer for Natalie Portman's new film "Vox Lux" has been released online. It highlights the Academy Award-winning actress' character, a music star named Celeste, who is gearing up for a comeback while battling her inner demons.
"This is a combination of my life's work so far," she says in an interview with a reporter about her upcoming album. "I was under a lot of stress after my accident, but that's what this show is about. It's about rebirth."
She also takes the stage, where she asks to the concertgoers, "So tell me, how many of you have cried yourself to sleep at night?" She continues, "People have been trying to take me down for years, but I won't stay down."
Jude Law plays her manager, who is seen urging the star to come out of her room. Seemingly wasted, Celeste falls flat on her face.
"It's a weird world we live in. And the way I've chosen to live my life goes against some people's views on things," she says during a press conference. Dealing with the pressure of constant media attention, she asks paparazzi not to follow her.
She suddenly loses her temper when a waitress asks to take a picture with her in a restaurant. She's also seen having a meltdown in a dressing room, yelling in front of her manager, "I am sick of everybody treating me like I'm not a person!"
This behind-the-scenes look at the pop diva's life is interspersed with scenes of a vigil, a car explosion and a SWAT team invading a building. She says at the end of the trailer, "They wanted a show. I gave them a show."
The movie begins in 1999 as teenage sisters Celeste (Raffey Cassidy) and Eleanor (Stacy Martin) survive a violent tragedy. The sisters compose and perform a song about their experience, making something lovely and cathartic out of catastrophe. Celeste's performance of it at a memorial service helps catapult her to stardom, with the help of her manager (Law). Her meteoric rise to fame dovetails with a personal and national loss of innocence, and by 2017, Celeste (now played by Portman) has a teenage daughter (also Cassidy) and is mounting a comeback after a scandalous incident almost derailed her career.
Brady Corbet directs and writes the music drama, which also stars Jennifer Ehle, Willem Dafoe, Maria Dizzia and Christopher Abbott. It is set to open in U.S. theaters on December 7.
The movie was premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in September, and has been praised by critics, particularly for Portman's performance. She is being submitted in the Oscar race for supporting actress.
