A full decade after his previous film The Neon Demon (though he has done a bit of work in television in those years), Nicholas Winding Refn is back with another neon-tinged thriller, this time with a science fiction element, Her Private Hell. Sophie Thatcher plays a woman looking for her father as a strange mist descends on the dystopian city in which she lives.
Stylistically, Winding Refn wanted the film to feel a bit like an Italian giallo – and, joyfully, that extended to his choice of composer. He has previously enjoyed a rock-solid partnership with Cliff Martinez but this time round turned to the great Pino Donaggio, now 84 and having not scored any films for a few years, I had assumed he may have quietly retired.
As it turns out – far from it. There is nothing quiet or retired-sounding about his wonderful score. It’s over fifty years now since he announced himself as a composer of real note with his debut film score Don’t Look Now and he’s done all sorts of different work over the subsequent decades, but I imagine will always be remembered most keenly for his music for Brian de Palma: and it is very much that music that serves as the most obvious reference point for Her Private Hell.
A little like Ennio Morricone in his latter years, the jagged edges that made his signature scores so distinctive aren’t really there any more, but there’s an argument to be made that that actually makes this music even more satisfying. The vintage main theme, in which Donaggio manages to conjure up romance and mystery and suspense all at the same time, as he has done so very often, is first heard in the wonderful “Touch of Beauty”, undoubtedly one of the cues of the year – those kind of Herrmann-adjacent shimmering strings which the composer has made his own are simply irrestistible.
There’s beauty elsewhere, too – “Beautiful People” introduces a second romantic melody and it’s a killer, so sumptuous and ravishing it’s hard to believe we’re hearing 2026 film music. And when the wordless female vocal appears in “Ecstasy” – well, the track lives up to its name. I really love “Retro Beauty (Jukebox)” where the composer adds some vintage Euro-pop stylings to the orchestra.
Amongst all this, Donaggio also throws in some very different action and suspense material. Some of the latter can be quite challenging: the eight-minute “House of Horror” leaves nothing on the table, that’s for sure, with its fascinating sound design and multi-layered tension. “Man in the Mirror” is great slasher-type action music and everything comes to a head near the end in the brilliant “Don’t Bring a Knife to an Axe Fight”, a ten-minute tour-de-force of violence and tragedy and thrills and beauty.
Alongside Donaggio’s score, the lengthy album also features five cues by the director’s nephew Julian Winding – while very different from the legendary Italian composer’s music, these are all entertaining, mostly electronic dance-influenced pieces which can certainly hold their own and the ethereal “Let It End the Sweetness of Nothing” is absolutely gorgeous, closer to the Martinez music we’re used to in the director’s films.
I remember when Winding Refn announced (with no shortage of glee) that he would be working with Pino Donaggio on the film – and subsequently shared some pictures from the scoring stage on social media, seemingly in disbelief at what he was witnessing – that he had the wisdom not just to hire the composer in the first place but also to allow him to be seemingly completely unleashed to just do his thing, is to his great credit.
Donaggio had already written some great film music before I was even born (and I was born quite a long time ago); how extraordinary it is that as I approach my half-century he has delivered what will without any question be one of the most notable new film scores of the year. It’s right up there with his best, and I don’t say that lightly. Even though it’s a bit smoother around the edges than his great scores of the past, it still has such a sense of vitality and energy – while I can’t stop smiling while I listen to all those familiar devices coming out one more time, this is absolutely not just a nostalgia-fest. Everything about it is just fabulous.
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