Movie Review: 'The Pale Blue Eye' Is An Appealingly Dark Period Mystery, But Film Largely Frustrates
Jan.5 - Scott Cooper is a talented filmmaker. It is exceptionally rare.
Typically, screenwriters make movies with strong premise, which leads to disappointment when they turn out to be mediocre.
However, there are two exceptions: 2015's excellent popular drama Black Mass and Cooper's debut in 2009's Crazy Heart, which were bolstered by Jeff Bridges' Oscar-winning performance.
Sadly, Christian Bale failed to resurrect Cooper for the third time, despite his immense talent. Pale Blue Eyes - The promising but ultimately disappointing mystery drama hits Netflix this week after a brief run in select theaters.
Peel starred in Cooper's drama Out of the Furnace in 2013 and Western Hostiles in 2017. With the addition of "The Pale Blue Eye" to the collaboration, they've now created what Peel calls an "ethics trilogy." Revenge." (Good name. We clap gently.)
Based on Louis Bayard's 2003 novel of the same name, which Cooper says he wanted to adapt because he read it shortly after publication, it is about the 1830 murder of an Academy cadet United States military at West Point. And the complicity of a fictional version of a young father of Edgar Allan.
Bell portrays Augustus Landor, a notorious drunken local detective hired to investigate a death in which a young man's heart was skillfully removed.
Landor, who thinks he doesn't like the academy students, is well supported by his boss, Colonel Sylvanus Thayer (Timothy Spall, "Mr. Turner") and, more importantly, Captain Thayer, Captain Ethan Hitchcock (Simon McBurney, "The Theory of Everything"). He was also frustrated with student dropout in general.
However, there is one student among many: Bo (Harry Melling).
"The man you are looking for is a poet," he insisted to Landor.
Poe probably knew this, of course, because he would write many compositions, including the poems The Raven and Annabell Lee, and - at least thematically relevant to the epic - the story The Tell-Tale Heart.
(In his handler's statement, Cooper notes that Poe was only at West Point for seven months - "before he was deported" - during which time no murders appear to have taken place.)
Unsure of what Poe and his amateur detective work will do, Landor secretly enlists his help in the investigation, hoping that art collaborator Artemus Marquis (Harry Luty, "The Industry") will help him gain knowledge about the students. Daniel Marquis (Toby Jones, "Empire of Light") is the son of the Academy's diagnostician and surgeon, and his examination of a student at the Landour Morgue proves irresponsible.
One of Bo's chosen ways to help solve the murders was to try to win the affection of Artemus' charming but epileptic sister, Lea Marquis (Lucy Boynton).
Saying more about what's to come in Blue Eyes would be doing viewers a disservice, but as you might have guessed, it does lead to some weird and dark places.
Frustratingly, the crucial late scene - so dark and eerie - feels more funny than serious. Running was not an easy task, but Cooper was struggling to keep up.
It also gives the actors plenty of room to work, which usually pays off but causes Bell and Mealing to miss an important moment.
In addition, Melling (films "Harry Potter" and "The Queen's Gambit") is one of the greatest assets in cinema. Pooh is weird but he's also weirdly funny. Some of the scenes Mealing shares with Boynton ("Bohemian Rhapsody") are some of the film's most thrilling.
Pelé was solid, sure, but he didn't do much to pull it off consistently, at least not until the final minutes of "Pale Blue Eyes." That last piece of history is compelling enough to recommend this movie, but not enough.
So do two popular supporting actors: Gillian Anderson ("The Crown") as Julia McKiss, Artemis, Leia's protective mother; and Robert Duvall ("Crazy Heart") as Jean Baby, a phrenologist and expert in dark work whom Landor and Beau uncover in their investigation. (Oddly enough, Duvall and Bell last shared a screen on Newsies in 1992, when Bell was still a teenager.)
Cooper's previous work was 2021's Antlers, a highly unusual horror story that goes beyond its creepy aesthetic. Maybe the movie has a really high ceiling, but that's not the case with "Pale Blue Eyes." All the ingredients for a great detective film are there, not a missed opportunity.
The real mystery is what Cooper can do to take his business to the next level.
Will Carpenter is an arts and entertainment reporter for the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. He can be reached by email at wcarpenter@wyomingnews.com or by phone at 307-633-3135. Follow him on Twitter @will_carp_.
