To Poe or Not to Poe

The Pale Blue Eye is a historical murder mystery film that was released in theaters last month before appearing on Netflix, and stars Christian Bale as a retired police constable asked to investigate a mysterious suicide at West Point in 1830. I watched it mostly because I like old mysteries, and the story included a young Edgar Allen Poe, who is a cadet at the academy at the time (which is true, except he was also married in real life at that point.)

What appears to be a suicide turns out to be murder, which Constable Landor reveals after examining the body, and then the hunt for the murderer begins. Landor meets Poe and asks him to discreetly help with the investigation by gathering intel on the other cadets. Various leads seem to point to various characters, but gradually you get the feeling that it's some kind of conspiracy, with Satanic rites involved. By the time the real murderer is exposed in a somewhat ridiculous ritual sacrifice scene I was already suspicious, and rightly so. That's all I'll say so I don't spoil the whole film.

I'm on the fence about how I feel about this movie. I thought the acting started out very well, considering Christian Bale is not one of my favorite actors, and then took a turn in the wrong direction. While actor Harry Melling did a decent job depicting a young Poe he went over the top with an almost comical Southern accent (Poe was born in Boston but raised in Virginia.) Everyone in the film started out okay, but to me ended up struggling, if they were trying too hard to be early 19th century people. Gillian Anderson, an actor I do like, was just okay (and at times looked mildly exasperated with her role to me.) The screenwriter for this one (as well as the novelist who wrote the book) should both get a kick in the butt for what they did with the story.

On the plus side the cinematography was spot on, as was the brooding melancholy of the film. The language and the procedures are accurate to the era, too. This is pre-Civil War America, and you're right there with the costumes, settings and props. That's probably why I'm on the fence. If you could take the actors and the stupid final resolution (and it's really stupid) out of the movie, you have a haunting depiction of life in 1830.

If you're bored and have nothing to watch, and you're not a writer who becomes easily annoyed with tricksy screen writing, The Pale Blue Eye isn't a horrible choice. There is some violence, and graphic depiction of corpses, but it's fairly tame. Available now on Netflix.