The Pale Blue Eye (2022)
Every Heart Tells a Tale
I thought about doing a horror movie tonight, but opted instead to go with a mystery flick. Granted, I could have saved a half an hour by doing a horror movie - but sometimes long doesn’t mean taxing, and there’s mild hope that a little extra runtime will help the mystery element develop to it’s maximum intrigue. Anyways, to be perfectly honest, I misread the description and though this was supposed to be some alternate fantasy world where Sherlock Holmes teams up with Edgar Allen Poe to solve a murder, but quickly realized it’s just some guy like Sherlock teaming up with Poe to solve a mystery - so why don’t we sit down and find out the mystery of The Pale Blue Eye.
The story watered down is simple: murder happens, super-detective gets called in to solve it. Turns out it’s not just any murder though - it’s a grisly murder involving a missing heart from a cadet at the military academy! Sit back for some lengthy segments of thinking, clue finding, posturing, danger, and romance as we try and get to the bottom of this mystery of mysteries, only to find out that the well might run a lot deeper than one would have thought. The hook of it being cult-related with the whole dark arts and missing hearts is a neat one to get some supernatural-drawn nerd like me to tune in, and fits well with the oft-macabre or morbid nature of many of Poe’s works to draw in the literary nerds, but in all honesty the bulk run time is going to be spent in those investigation phases, or the budding little romance section more so than anything that’s actually supernatural. Sorry for folks hoping for wizards and ghosts.
The main backbone to this movie is going to be in the actors. Yes, the pitch might be enough to get you in the door, but with the lengthy somewhat uneventful (as far as action goes) segments leave a lot to be demanded out of the actors to keep you from zoning out whilst they jump from a clue to another step that you wouldn’t likely make the jump to without having seen the movie before. In that regard, those actors do a wonderful job. The main detective has a calm collected nature about him despite the movie hinting and spelling out a troubled, heartbroken past. Poe in contrast adds a lot of emotional energy to the scenes, and the bond of the two plays out with some serious chemistry a times. The side characters get their little moments as well, although the vast bulk of the movie is largely spent with only a handful of the would-be antagonists, hidden villains, red herrings, or otherwise supporting actors really do not get the most advanced levels of things to work with to allow them to really stand out. That being said, it’s a pretty darn fine job everyone does in the movie.
The characters as alluded to aren’t equally built here. Our main detective has the most backstory delivered at a drip-feed until his past comes up more towards the end of the movie. Poe, although interesting a character in contrast to all these other straight-laced cadets and the likes, doesn’t share a whole lot about his past. He does end up in a romance situation with another side character who gets to have her own bit of history to perk up the watchers interest - namely an illness that seams to cause seizures - and their banter can help build up some chemistry there as well. Actually, both of the main women that show up in the movie are quite… we’ll call in interesting, or maybe quirky. A little Extra? Perhaps we’ll go with that. That said, none of the characters exactly exude “this is the killer” vibes across the movie, and given that we come into it after the murders have begone, we the watchers won’t really have a great list of suspects to begin with, which just makes everyone who acts too weird or to normal seem that much more like they might be someone the movie will pull out of thin air to blame it on.
Crime scene
In the end I of course can’t really talk about that side of it without spoiling it, but there is one scene in particular where it lays in pretty near every single clue possible to get the viewers on page with the movie, which is roughly one or two short scenes before it reveals the entire mystery. In turn, it’s not the greatest mystery as far as a who-dun it sort of flick to watch, far more the “suspense” kind of mystery movie where it’s a matter of who will make it out before they let us know whose doing it. Honestly, after saying that and thinking about it I’d almost say it’s more like a drama play than it is a mystery, as you’ll spend more time involved in the character dynamics and figuring out the characters themselves than you necessarily will the puzzle at hand. It’s like if you were trying to play a game of life-sized chess, but you knew there was famous celebrities in each of the pieces - you are probably going to make some dumb moves because your too preoccupied with whose in that outfit.
Audio does a good job adding to scenes and the normal run of things. It’s not out of place and feels fitting of the setting, but it’s also super easy for it to just slip out of my brain in the end because of it. Balance is good, and you won’t have any hard times hearing things. There are a few lines in French that are, of course, beyond me with my limited knowledge of foreign (to me) languages - and they don’t deem them all important enough to merit subtitles beyond “speaking in French” - ah well.
Costumes are pretty on point. Although it feels at times a bit limited - what with everyone wearing pretty much the exact same thing at the academy - and that can lead to a bit of not being able to tell characters apart at a quick glance or in the darker scenes. Either way, it’s a change of pace from more modern attire, so it’s a little breath of fresh air to me to get those sorts of old-timey outfits. Effects work doesn’t have a ton to work with - a couple of heartless bodies really - but what effects are in there do look perfectly fine and will keep you in the movie. The levels of action in the movie are quite low - with most the action taking place in the second half of the film and largely being quick scuffles. I mean, I think most wouldn’t be approaching this movie from anything but a slow-burn mystery standpoint since it’s marketed as a mystery, but it might be a bit tricky of a watch for those who can’t focus on things long.
A little liht reading
It was an interesting movie. I didn’t see a good portion of it coming thanks to the lack of real obvious build up at some points, although there’s also some pretty obvious things it hints at that maybe they didn’t think were quite as obvious as they were. It has a few layers to it, although largely less supernatural than I had personally hoped for. Acting is done well, and characters play off each other nicely at times so folks who enjoy those character-heavy pieces might enjoy this far more than someone that needs things to constantly be happening to have fun.