Quickie Review:
Lily Day (Charlize Theron), was eight years old when she witnessed the murder of her family that led to the conviction of her brother. Now decades after the murder Lily revisits the case, which uncovers some disturbing truths behind the events of the murder. Dark Places, conceptually is a very interesting story. The movies explores both the present and past with flashbacks so more and more clues are revealed for the audience to decipher. However, somewhere along the way the movie starts to lose track, resulting in an end that should have wowed but instead will leave you asking "is that it?"
Full Review:
Dark Places is an adaption of the novel by Gillian Flynn, the same person who authored Gone Girl. And we all remember the film version of Gone Girl that shocked everyone (except the readers) in cinemas last year. So of course I had to check out Dark Places. Unfortunately I think my expectations were too high.
The performance by the talented Charlize Theron was great. She gets the audience to change your opinion about her character. You dislike her at first but as you get to understand her tortured side, you start to empathise with her. Christina Hendricks had a crucial role to anchor the flashbacks which she did flawlessly. The movie does a lot of things right associated with a good murder-mystery. The clues are always showed to us rather than being told what to believe. It leaves us to decide who the prime suspect is, and that constantly shifts as more and more evidence is uncovered. That is what grabbed my attention for most of the movie. The title of the movie is perfect, because the story does go into dark places. All the characters are more intriguing because they all have some hidden guilt and secrets that they are afraid to admit.
The film has a good hook where a sister may have accidentally sentenced her brother to prison for a crime that he may not have committed. However, as the film progresses, very early on the audience can make some very important conclusions, that I believe we shouldn't have been able to. I'm not saying it's completely predictable but rather that because we have already made these (correct) conclusions, any scenes that start to contradict that starts to feel unnecessary and is an obvious mislead. So there ends up being several scenes that are not adding to the process of solving the case. Ultimately this makes the story more complicated than it needed to be, and I didn't feel the final impact of the truth.
Don't get me wrong, Dark Places is certainly a serviceable movie. There is some mystery-solving entertainment to be had. Yet the execution of the story by over complicating the case for the sake of false leads is what essentially left the movie from reaching its potential.
Lily Day (Charlize Theron), was eight years old when she witnessed the murder of her family that led to the conviction of her brother. Now decades after the murder Lily revisits the case, which uncovers some disturbing truths behind the events of the murder. Dark Places, conceptually is a very interesting story. The movies explores both the present and past with flashbacks so more and more clues are revealed for the audience to decipher. However, somewhere along the way the movie starts to lose track, resulting in an end that should have wowed but instead will leave you asking "is that it?"
Full Review:
Dark Places is an adaption of the novel by Gillian Flynn, the same person who authored Gone Girl. And we all remember the film version of Gone Girl that shocked everyone (except the readers) in cinemas last year. So of course I had to check out Dark Places. Unfortunately I think my expectations were too high.
The performance by the talented Charlize Theron was great. She gets the audience to change your opinion about her character. You dislike her at first but as you get to understand her tortured side, you start to empathise with her. Christina Hendricks had a crucial role to anchor the flashbacks which she did flawlessly. The movie does a lot of things right associated with a good murder-mystery. The clues are always showed to us rather than being told what to believe. It leaves us to decide who the prime suspect is, and that constantly shifts as more and more evidence is uncovered. That is what grabbed my attention for most of the movie. The title of the movie is perfect, because the story does go into dark places. All the characters are more intriguing because they all have some hidden guilt and secrets that they are afraid to admit.
The film has a good hook where a sister may have accidentally sentenced her brother to prison for a crime that he may not have committed. However, as the film progresses, very early on the audience can make some very important conclusions, that I believe we shouldn't have been able to. I'm not saying it's completely predictable but rather that because we have already made these (correct) conclusions, any scenes that start to contradict that starts to feel unnecessary and is an obvious mislead. So there ends up being several scenes that are not adding to the process of solving the case. Ultimately this makes the story more complicated than it needed to be, and I didn't feel the final impact of the truth.
Don't get me wrong, Dark Places is certainly a serviceable movie. There is some mystery-solving entertainment to be had. Yet the execution of the story by over complicating the case for the sake of false leads is what essentially left the movie from reaching its potential.