The Pale Blue Eye review
The Pale Blue Eye puts a great cast into a slow revealing mystery. If you have the patience to make it through some tedium in the middle, it eventually pays off.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
The Pale Blue Eye
Directed by Scott Cooper
Screenplay by Scott Cooper
Starring Christan Bale, Harry Melling, Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Toby Jones
The Pale Blue Eye Review
The Pale Blue Eye takes an intriguing premise and a fine cast and delivers a whodunnit worth watching…with one big caveat. When the pacing should pick up in the second half it instead sticks itself in the mud. If you can weather that storm…it ends on a high note.
A west point cadet is found hanged; his heart removed. The academy hires detective Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) to investigate. He enlists the help of a cadet intrigued by the case, Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling). Together they work to discover who is behind the murder…and why they would take a human heart.
The Edgar Allan Poe of it all is probably what will raise your eyebrow in the synopsis of The Pale Blue Eye. It’s a neat bit of business, really. The real Poe attended West Point during this period. It uses his eccentricities and inevitable dismissal from the academy to great effect. Melling is terrific as Poe. His scenes with Bale are the highlight of the film. He plays Poe as a wordy, overly dramatic, awkward outcast. Someone who can get Landor information from the inside…but never quite fit there.
Bale is great as always. Landor is a tired, weary man who talks of being weathered by age even if Bale’s young eyes don’t allow for the full illusion. Landor has suffered great loss in his life and carries a well-earned reputation as a drunk. He proves to be a more than capable detective despite these truths.
The first hour of The Pale Blue Eye is very well done. It builds slowly but reveals details and leads often enough to be engaging. It’s also nice to look at. The story takes place in the winter…snow covering the ground, the woods surrounding the academy lifeless and barren. Night scenes are filmed by candlelight. This causes visibility issues but lends a feel of authenticity.
Unfortunately, as we enter the second half of The Pale Blue Eye, the pace never quickens. There would have been a great benefit to ramping up reveals an hour into the story. Instead, it gets stuck in a lull for a bit too long. It feels like the investigation has hit a wall, which narratively is fine…but the movie hits a wall along with it.
There are light elements of horror and black magic discussed occasionally in The Pale Blue Eye. Someone stole a heart for a reason, after all. You’ll have to watch the movie to learn if the witchcraft discussed plays a role in the final reveal. What I will say is that I found the final resolution of The Pale Blue Eye to be very satisfying. Satisfying enough to justify sticking through periods where the movie seems to walk in circles, slowly.
The Pale Blue Eye doesn’t so much present a gallery of suspects as it asks us to believe that our investigators are ahead of the story. Landor doesn’t shout accusations. He doesn’t even repeat a list of suspects as is common in mystery stories. On the surface he appears to be behind in the investigation…but he shows in private conversations with Poe that he has usually deduced more than he lets on. Poe isn’t as wise as Landor…but he inevitably catches up with a flourish. A third act romance storyline for Poe doesn’t work as good as it should and leads to some out of character moments that are unfortunate.
You’ll know quickly into The Pale Blue Eye if it’s a movie you will enjoy. If that first hour, or even half hour, isn’t to your liking…you can go ahead and turn it off. It’s not going to change its pace for the better. If the Landor/Poe dynamic and steady reveal of important information grabs your attention, however, stick with it. The downs might just be worth the ups.
Scare Value
The Pale Blue Eye gives its cast the time and space to tell the story. This nets both positive and negative results. On one hand, the acting is top notch. On the other, it would benefit from quickening the pace. The lull at about the halfway point until the climax hurts the overall package some. That said…if you stick with it, The Pale Blue Eye has a nice payoff for your troubles.
3/5
The Pale Blue Eye Link
Streaming on Netflix
The Pale Blue Eye Trailer
If you enjoyed this review of The Pale Blue Eye, please check out our other new movie reviews
