“Her Private Hell” (2026) is Nicholas Winding Refn’s latest film but come well rested or bring a coffee because what some find hypnotic, others will consider somnambulant. Set in three different realms with some overlap thanks to an encroaching mist that almost acts as a bridge across dimensions, actor and nepo baby Elle (Sophie Thatcher), Private Kay (Charles Melton) and the Leatherman will cross paths. Who is the Leatherman and how are they related to each other? This is the kind of movie that you can spoil with every detail and still leave uncertain what NWR wants his audience to walk away thinking after, “What was that?” Did I enjoy it? No, I was fighting sleep. Did I appreciate it? Not as much as some of his other work like “Bronson” (2008), “Valhalla Rising” (2009) or “The Neon Demon” (2016).
Elle has the most relatively normal storyline. She decides to work on a comic book, sci-fi movie adaptation with her leather clad father, Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott, who is hopefully healthy and knocks his brief appearance out of the park), but he leaves so she can reconcile with her stepmom and former best friend, Dominique (Havana Rose Liu, the most relatable part of the movie). It appears to be a love-hate triangle with Elle relating to her father, feeling ambivalent about her stepmom and generally frustrated with getting what she wants. Elle allows new fellow actor and fame hungry, Hunter (Kristine Froseth), to share their suite and her room at the Tower Hotel, but Elle’s welcoming words contrast with a face that reveals disgust. Both witness a murder, and the effect puts a wrench in the movie shoot. Elle uses her father’s cigarette lighter and jacket, discovers a gift of a golden hatchet and begins to have visions of the comic book creator, Private Kay.
US Army Private Kay is filled with rage at whoever killed his daughter, is out for revenge and hopes to reunite with her one day. He runs so far afoul of the human trafficking complete with thick chains Yakuza and the Japanese police that even his superior officer, Terry (Parker Sawyers), cannot keep him immune anymore. NWR finds creative ways to ensure that Melton’s torso is visible, and his shirt ripped off or clothes exchanged, which makes it hard to hate “Her Private Hell.” Once when he is outnumbered, he either dies or exchanges his uniform for a leather jacket with chain mail draped over the shoulders then gets transported into NWR’s version of hell, which looks like the Fortress of Solitude meets the Wizard of Oz’s stylistic choices complete with a three dimensional Phantom Zone, which renders him incapable of intervening but able to still see what is happening in Elle’s realm when the Leatherman attacks. When a living character enters that space, they ascend stairs, which is normally associated with heaven. In NWR’s world, lofty levels have more tower of Babel connotations.
Who or what is the Leatherman or the Leather King: the devil, a person, a monster, a god? Johnny tells the story to his cast who are draped around the living room about a killer looking for his daughter, but the killer forgets and gets stuck in the underworld. When the mist comes, which is very Cecil B. DeMille mist like the angel of death in “The Ten Commandments” (1956), he remembers. Johnny warns, “Take care of your daughter or he will,” which is a weird thing to say before leaving your daughter alone to work on your project doing God knows what. Is he the Leatherman? I don’t think so. If the Leatherman crosses a woman, he will kill her because of it and rip her chest open as if he is auditioning to be a face hugger’s offspring. Yes, that kind of does not make sense until the end (sort of). He arrives with the mist and wears diamond studded gloves. His head glitters too, which coincidentally happens to be one of Elle’s stylistic choices. The legend claims that if someone cuts off his hands, he can die. Chekhov’s golden hatchet.
All the realms have a few overlapping traits besides the mist, a killer and no sun. The wide-eyed Ms. T (Shioli Kutsuna) and the spacey dancing Ms. S (Aoi Yamada) interact with Elle and Kay with offers. Disguised as a seamstress, Ms. T pricks Elle with a needle and claims it is a sign of success while Ms. T licks the blood off. In the underworld, they are lurking around. Hunter tells a legend about them. They are Kingmakers, shapeshifters, neutral and act as guides for the Leatherman to find his destiny. They make and kill him. They instruct Kay that he will only reunite with his daughter once Leatherman dies, and to do that, he must become a ghost, thus the change in wardrobe. Ghosts wear leather naturally. Huh, that does not bode well for dear old dad, who remains off screen and incommunicado for most of “Her Private Hell.”
So, what does “Her Private Hell” add up to? That would be the true spoiler, but the key to everything is Elle and her vaguely incesty relationships and layered frustration relating to her dad, her work, the object of her desire, and the other people in her environment. Thatcher and Melton give committed, disciplined performances likely aligned with NWR’s vision with Melton giving nothing but statuesque fierceness and Thatcher willing herself to gradually come apart at the seams as her character indulges her worst emotional impulses. Even her teeth seem to be separating over the course of the movie as if she is bursting inwardly. Imagine Thatcher and Jena Malone in a movie! Everyone gives it their all, but the actual fantasy denouement denies catharsis to the audience.
Visually NWR’s work is aesthetically seamless but feels vacuous. It is possible to have too much of a good thing, and the hazy purple, blue and green become monotonous rendering every act tonally the same. While there are bursts of violence, it feels remote and largely consequence free though well-choreographed. “Her Private Hell” will become yours except it is a hell of fatigue and boredom. The story is far too theoretical to get invested in a visceral way. The one shot that haunted the entire movie is when Johnny leaves the hotel and enters the elevator. It almost seems suicidal because the elevator is made of glass, so it looks like he is walking off the edge of the building as the door closes, but he is not. It is evocative.
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If I had to guess what NWR is trying to convey with “Her Private Hell,” Elle is Leatherman, so it is another treacherous, homicidal gay trope except with a vaguely unearned gender queer twist that feels shoved into the eleventh hour. If it is supposed to be a trans theme, let’s ignore it because the ongoing trans genocide is enough. Let’s ease up, cinema. If the Leatherman is a daughter who loses her identity and imagines herself as her father to achieve what she wants, his wife or other women, then acts enraged and can kill under that identity. So she is not looking for her daughter except vaguely herself, her identity, to claim what her father has, and kills other daughters for not giving her what they would give a father freely. Daddy has a double meaning, which can be a bloodline and the sexual term for one’s male lover. The key hint is when Leatherman kills Hunter, and the blood bursts at the same time as Elle’s climax. In the elevator, Elle was eyeing Hunter based on the camera’s POV shot. Kay feels extraneous except in Elle’s world, for her psyche to accept seeing herself as a killer, rescuing Kay. Kay may be the only example of a good father so either the father that she wishes that she had or the father that she had before whatever trauma happened to her at the age of Kay’s daughter. All the diamonds and gems suggest fame and money, and she describes her father as “the money man.” Anyway, Freud called, and he wants his penis envy back.
