The Pale Blue Eye, directed by Scott Cooper and based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Louis Bayard, is admittedly one I had absolutely zero knowledge of when it released. I hadn’t seen any sort of promotional material, nor had I heard of the film before it was dropped into my Netflix queue. Now, I had not even heard of the novel that this film adapts, let alone having not read it. That being said, I will not be taking into account the accuracy of the adaptation into my opinion and will judge this film solely based on the characteristics of the film itself. But I must say, the concept gave me promise of something certainly enjoyable.
Between Christian Bale in a starring role and Harry Melling starring as Edgar Allen Poe, all wrapped into a murder mystery, I was hooked on concept alone. It makes it all the more disappointing that I felt underwhelmed through most of the film and had to make multiple attempts to keep myself engaged within the story that was told.
The film follows Christian Bale’s Augustus Landor, a detective in 1830’s America. He gets hired to a case at the US Military Academy at West Point in New York to investigate the murder of one of the cadets, who was seemingly hung and then had his heart ripped from his chest. Along the way of the mystery, Landor becomes partners with a young Edgar Allen Poe, played with a Foghorn-Leghorn-esque accent by Harry Melling, and together they attempt to solve the mystery of this young man’s murder. The premise is simple, yet easy enough for me to want to get away from my normal television habits and turn it on.
I cannot understate how beautiful this movie looks. Scott Cooper knows how to build atmosphere within a film, and it’s no different in The Pale Blue Eye. We get a really well-done look into 1800’s New York and there a really great mood of darkness and dreariness that you can just feel from seeing what’s on screen. And it’s not even to the point of being horror-film creepy either. It just is the right amount of moodiness and tone within the way the film was shot and how the scenes are presented that we get that gothic style feel that this movie desperately needs.
In addition to feel, the acting is surprisingly enjoyable throughout the film. Bale obviously rocks, as he does in most films that he is in. None of the other actors feel out of place in this sort of period piece either. The only exception I give to this is Melling’s adaptation of Poe. I felt the acting was fine, but the accent was too over the top. It felt very much like they were imitating Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc from the Knives Out Series, but here it just really did not mesh with the gothic atmosphere they presented. On top of that, the dialogue given to Poe was completely over the top, as he spoke with a vocabulary not even the most well-educated of modern men would even use, and it was constant throughout the film. It felt as if I was watching him deliver a Shakespearean monologue on stage at Broadway every time he spoke, and that really detracted from my overall experience.
I also took issue with how the story developed through the course of the film. What started as a seriously intriguing murder mystery seemed to lose its identity once we hit the middle third of the movie. The Pale Blue Eye seemed to get away completely from the murder and the mystery that they introduced and instead focused on character development, especially surrounding Edgar Allen Poe. It was a really interesting choice that I can’t say worked. In addition, once the mystery picked back up, I came to a realization that with almost a third of the film left, the film had only introduced one potential suspect in the case. With very little development on that front, the whole “mystery” of the film felt wasted. I had no engagement to what was happening on screen.
Then, completely out of nowhere, and with very little build up, the case is solved and we see the mystery play out in front of us. This comes with 40 minutes left in the film, which is wholly surprising. However, the ending is what really causes the film’s downfall. That last half hour is spent unraveling the rest of the film with a twist reveal that comes out of nowhere.
Final Thoughts
I understand the idea surrounding this twist ending. I think it could have been successful. I don’t feel it was done well enough here to justify using it. Instead, I was left completely unsatisfied with what I had just seen. With a runtime of 2 hours and 8 minutes, to think that 30 of those minutes could have been cut completely and I would have been happier for it makes me feel sad having seen it.
