Vox Lux(2018)

Plot Summary

• ACT 1: Genesis In January 2000, a boy named Cullen Active walks into his school in the Staten Island neighborhood of New Brighton, goes to a classroom, and shoots the teacher. A student, 13-year-old Celeste Montgomery (Natalie Portman), calmly and compassionately talks to Cullen, and offers to pray with him. However, he shoots her in the neck and goes on to shoot other students.As she slowly recovers from her injury, Celeste and her older sister, Ellie (Stacy Martin), write music together. Soon after, at an event held in memory of the shooting victims, Celeste sings a song that she and Ellie wrote called "Wrapped Up". The song becomes an instant hit and Celeste is soon picked up by a manager (Jude Law).Over the next two years, Celeste manages and navigates the increasing pressures of her newfound fame in spite of the past and her injury. They test their songs in the US and then head to to Stockholm to record their first album. Celeste and Ellie get to spend a lot of time together.She and Ellie indulge in bouts of partying that soon get in the way of Celeste's work, including Celeste having a one-night stand with an older musician and Ellie having sex with the manager the night before the September 11 attacks. Celeste views this as a betrayal and from this point on leads to a divergence between the sisters. However, we see that Celeste continues to successfully rise in the music industry, with her songs getting quickly picked up by the radio and rushing the demand for her first music video, "Hologram (Smoke and Mirrors)".ACT 2: Regenesis In 2017, a terrorist shooting on a beach in Croatia is rumored to be linked to Celeste's music due to the masks that the criminals donned, which are similar to the masks from Celeste's "Hologram" video. Celeste is now 31 years old and preparing for the first night of a concert tour for her sixth album, Vox Lux. Her manager informs her of the terrorist shooting, and then tells her to prepare for the ensuing press junkets.Before her first interview, Celeste takes her teenage daughter, Albertine (conceived from the encounter with the musician), to lunch. Once there, Celeste unveils her erratic and destructive behavior, aided by alcohol, resulting in Celeste and Albertine getting kicked out of the restaurant by the manager. It is revealed here that 6 years prior, Celeste blinded herself in her left eye due to consuming excessive amounts of methanol while binge-drinking household cleaning products. Celeste then drove under the influence, injuring a man in his left leg and pelvis and resulting in a public lawsuit.After lunch, Celeste has a heated argument with Ellie after finding out Albertine has recently lost her virginity; Ellie has been the one raising Albertine since her birth. The press interviews begin soon after, with Celeste becoming increasingly unhinged after one interviewer mentions the aforementioned driving incident. Her publicist decides to cancel the rest of the interviews scheduled that day and asks Celeste to rest before the concert. However, Celeste and her manager get high on drugs and have sex. That evening, an impaired Celeste heads for the concert venue with her entourage in tow. She then experiences a mental breakdown, with Ellie successfully comforting her before sending her out.FINALE Celeste appears ready for the concert and preps for the stage with her band and background dancers. She then performs multiple songs with elaborate dance numbers involved. It is revealed that after she was shot, Celeste told Ellie that she made a deal with the devil for her life. The movie ends with her manager, Albertine, and Ellie pensively looking on at the facade of a performing Celeste.

Storyline

• Vox Lux follows the rise of Celeste from the ashes of a major national tragedy to pop super stardom. The film spans 18 years and traces important cultural moments through her eyes, starting in 1999 and concluding in 2017. In 1999, teenage Celeste (Raffey Cassidy) survives a violent tragedy. After singing at a memorial service, Celeste transforms into a burgeoning pop star with the help of her songwriter sister (Stacy Martin) and a talent manager (Jude Law). Celeste's meteoric rise to fame and concurrent loss of innocence dovetails with a shattering terrorist attack on the nation, elevating the young powerhouse to a new kind of celebrity: American icon, secular deity, global superstar. By 2017, adult Celeste (Natalie Portman) is mounting a comeback after a scandalous incident that derailed her career. Touring in support of her sixth album, a compendium of sci-fi anthems entitled Vox Lux, the indomitable, foul-mouthed pop savior must overcome her personal and familial struggles to navigate motherhood, madness and monolithic fame in the Age of Terror. In Brady Corbet's second feature, following his 2015 breakout debut The Childhood of a Leader - winner of the Best Director and Best Debut Film prizes at the Venice Film Festival - Celeste becomes a symbol of the cult of celebrity and the media machine in all its guts, grit and glory. Featuring original songs by Sia, an original score by Scott Walker, and a transcendent performance by Natalie Portman, personifying and pummeling the zeitgeist, Vox Lux is an origin story about the forces that shape us, as individuals, nations, and gods. In 1999, teenage sisters Celeste (Cassidy) and Eleanor (Martin) survive a seismic, violent tragedy. The sisters compose and perform a song about their experience, making something lovely and cathartic out of a catastrophe - while also catapulting Celeste to stardom. By 2017, Celeste (now played by Portman) is a mother to a teenage daughter of her own and is struggling to navigate a career fraught with scandals when another act of terrifying violence demands her attention.