In Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest, the city appears as a chrome-lit dream where leather and neon fuse with an almost tactile sensuality. Two women, Elle and Hunter, cross paths in a hotel lobby, their alliance unfolding amid a sci-fi comic framework guided by Elle’s father. The plot soon tightens into a labyrinth of power plays and family ties, all set against a chilling urban myth that threatens to swallow the narrative whole.
The Leather Man emerges as the city’s most feared legend, his bloody trail a haunting riddle. Private K, a military man haunted by the loss of his daughter, chases this enigmatic killer, turning the pursuit into a personal quest for meaning and possible justice. Yet the chase often feels secondary to style, with atmosphere and visuals eclipsing a clear, driving story.
Visually, the film stands out beyond simple visuals, inviting viewers into a world where texture drives the story. Moody, painterly frames do more than look good—they show emotions, turning rain-soaked streets and shiny surfaces into mirrors of desire, fear, and doubt. Each shot invites reading the subtext: light that won’t settle on one color signals a character’s instability, while shadowy doorways open to memory and outcome. This careful arrangement of image and space keeps a trance-like feel, with surface quirks acting as symbols. The score heightens this effect, matching the scene’s rhythm—sharp strings in tense moments and a soft swell at revelations—so music and image work as one immersive language. When the craft aligns, it creates a hypnotic rhythm that lingers, encouraging repeat viewings to notice subtle tonal shifts and movement patterns that might be missed. Yet the visuals also bring a tension: they tempt viewers to fixate on texture at the expense of plot momentum, making the story feel like a curated gallery—impressive to study, harder to follow on first viewing. The result is a cinematic mood piece that rewards patient attention, offering rich, tactile sensations that deepen with each revisit as layers of meaning build beneath the surface.
The dialogue tends toward a poised, almost self-parodic register. Co-written with Esti Giordani, the script leans into faux-avant-garde lines that sometimes verge on pretension. Quotations like “Aren’t you the poor little match girl – Hans Christian Andersen” signal the attempt to tilt perception rather than illuminate it. Some exchanges aim for a provocative edge and land as performative, not revelatory.
While ardent fans may defend the film as a deliberately stylized, dreamlike study of obsession and identity, others may find the equilibrium skewed toward artful posing at the expense of narrative clarity. The result is a bold, risky experiment—more mood-dominated than tightly woven storytelling. The movie debuted out of competition at Cannes and is rolling out to select markets, with further regional releases planned in the weeks ahead.
