When studying current movies for lessons applicable to future scripts, the temptation is to identify formulas—hit such-and-such plot point by page 10, make sure the narrative twists dramatically at the end of each act, etc. But sometimes it’s useful to analyze a major film that breaks more rules than it follows, even if the end result is disappointing. Bold ideas have a tendency to attract talent, and originality is the well from which truly memorable stories are drawn, so noble failures can occasionally teach us as much as conventional hits.

Vox Lux, a dark and strange new drama from writer-director Brady Corbert, is just such a noble failure. While it’s possible the film may get some award-season attention—especially for Natalie Portman’s leading performance—it is also possible that the movie will slip in and out of theaters quietly, then gain a small but passionate following of people who appreciate the movie’s idiosyncratic toughness. Should that prove the case, then Vox Lux teaches its first lesson simply by existing. The fact that Vox Lux got made (with on Oscar-winning star, no less) proves there’s a niche in the marketplace for offbeat storytelling.

Embrace the Darkness

While Vox Lux is ostensibly about fame, seeing as how it tells the story of a pop singer’s emotional difficulties, it is also about the grim subject of gun violence. The opening sequence introduces protagonist Celeste as a teenager (Raffey Cassidy) during the horrible day when a classmate murders several students and shoots Celeste in the throat, damaging her spine.

The movie doesn’t get any easier once it transitions, at the top of the second act, to Portman portraying Celeste as an adult. Not only is her daily life informed by lingering trauma from the school shooting, but Celeste becomes inadvertently associated with gun violence that occurs in Europe. She also wrestles with drug addiction, a complicated relationship with her sister, and an even more complicated relationship with her daughter, to whom Celeste is nearly a stranger because Celeste spends so much time traveling.

Corbert’s full title for his movie is Vox Lux: A Twenty-First Century Portrait, and voiceover during the film explicitly states Corbert’s intention to parallel Celeste’s life story with the dark trajectory America has followed since 1999, the year of the Columbine shooting. Watching Vox Lux, it’s apparent that Corbert also envisioned the picture as a profound meditation on millennial identity.

That Corbert fails to realize his grandiose ambitions is beside the point—what matters is that he took a big swing. This reminds us that pursuing Hollywood careers isn’t all about writing tidy three-act scripts as audition pieces for gigs at Marvel and Netflix. Sometimes, pursuing a Hollywood career is about declaring that you have something important—and unconventional—to say.

Takeaway: Once you find your voice, speak loudly and proudly.

The Voiceover Conundrum

Screenwriting experts tethered to old-fashioned ideas frequently describe two techniques as forbidden: flashbacks and voiceover. Back in the day, conventional wisdom held that both techniques reflect poor structure—if you need to turn back the clock or directly address the audience as a means of explaining something, then you failed at the planning stage. This is rubbish. Imagine Citizen Kane without flashbacks or Apocalypse Now without voiceover.

That said, there is good voiceover and there is bad voiceover. (Among other things, bad voiceover can be condescending or redundant.) But it’s not as if voiceover is inherently bad any more than flashbacks are inherently bad. Like any tool, voiceover can be used cleverly or it can be used clumsily. What’s interesting about Vox Lux is that it does both things at the same time.

Several times during the picture, Corbert shifts from regular narrative scenes to dreamy montages featuring voiceover spoken by Willem Dafoe, who provides both facts and thematic observations. Does this work? Yes and no.

The argument for “yes” is that the voiceover bits allow Corbert to make sweeping assertions about the significance of Celeste’s experiences without having to, say, introduce a biographer or documentary crew or journalist whose dialogue contextualizes Celeste’s experiences. The voiceover is efficient.

The argument for “no” is that the voiceover hits intellectually, whereas the most powerful sequences in Vox Lux—such as that barrage of violence at the beginning—hit viscerally. In narrative, speaking to the brain rarely has as much impact as speaking to the heart.

The way the voiceover sorta works and sorta doesn’t work contributes to making Vox Lux weirdly fascinating, even at its most undisciplined. Corbert’s willingness to experiment is admirable because he commits so wholeheartedly to everything.

Takeaway: Only you can decide which techniques suit your story.

The Final Analysis

Audience walkouts have been reported at screenings of Vox Lux, so it’s an understatement to say the picture isn’t for everyone. In fact, Vox Lux is such a challenging movie to watch that even some sophisticated viewers will say it’s not worth the trouble—too dark, too long, too pretentious, too undisciplined. All true.

Yet it’s also likely that some people will find the film moving and provocative and troubling, partially for the subjects it explores and partially for the actual texture of the film, which includes Portman’s deliberately abrasive performance as well as lengthy musical sequences featuring original songs composed by hitmaker Sia.

All of which raises a big question—what is the goal of making any particular piece of popular entertainment? Does every movie have to be a four-quadrant crowd-pleaser? It’s a common saying among artists that so long as a piece of work impacts one person, the work is valid, and by that measure, certainly Vox Lux is valid. Obviously, making expensive art that loses money is not a sustainable business model, but does every decision related to filmmaking have to be about money? Surely those involved with Vox Lux have ways of protecting their investments, such as leveraging losses on this project against profits from other projects.

So in the final analysis, the most interesting question to ask about Vox Lux is this: What results constitute success? If scoring big hits at the box office is your only measure for success, then it behooves you to learn formulas and patterns so you can replicate methodologies from other successful films. But if creating unique cinematic experiences is your criteria for achievement, then Vox Lux might be informative for you.

And if Vox Lux reveals a whole lot of things you don’t want to do in your scripts, then that’s a lesson, as well.

Takeaway: Hit films aren’t the only movies that can teach us about screenwriting.