Certification. 15
Running Time. 2 hours 8 mins
Director. Scott Cooper
Cast. Gillian Anderson, Christian Bale, Lucy Boynton, Harry Lawtey, Simon McBurney, Harry Melling, Toby Jones, Timothy Spall.
Rating. 63%
"It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold, I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture - a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually - I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever."
Based on Louis Bayard's 2006 eponymous novel, the title for Scott Cooper's The Pale Blue Eye comes from the paragraph above, an excerpt from Edgar Allan Poe's short story, The Tell-Tale Heart.
Writer and director Scott Cooper certainly has a flair for dark, eerie Americana - Crazy Heart, Out Of The Furnace and Antlers - his involvement in the Gothic murder mystery, The Pale Blue Eye, should therefore come as no surprise.
Cooper reunites with the wonderfully talented Christian Bale - for a third time, following Out Of The Furnace and Hostiles - to portray the veteran detective, Augustus Landor. A dour, uninteresting lead with little charm. Instead, it is left to Harry Melling to bring colour to the storyline, as a young Edgar Allan Poe. Poe is a willing assistant to Landor, eager to learn and ultimately moulded by the macabre events unfolding. A mixture of peculiar, quirky, intellectual and arrogant, Melling manages to make Poe likeable with an infectious warmth. After showing promise in The Lost City Of Z, The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs and The Old Guard, The Pale Blue Eye may turn out to be Harry Melling's breakout role.
The literary twist allows Cooper (as it did the novel's author, Louis Bayard) the opportunity to tease the audience with suitably appropriate Edgar Allan Poe Easter eggs. Edgar Allan Poe actually attended the US Military Academy at West Point, New York for a time around 1830, and at that point had already had some of his earlier poetry published. And whilst Augustus Landor is an entirely fictitious character, Poe does say to Landor, "I shall write a poem one day and send your name down through the ages." Edgar Allan Poe's final short story is entitled Landor's Cottage.
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