REVIEW: The Pale Blue Eye [2022]

December 21, 2022

2–3 minutes

Netflix, Scott Cooper, The Pale Blue Eye

Rating: R | Runtime: 128 minutes
Release Date: December 23rd, 2022 (USA)
Studio: Netflix
Director(s): Scott Cooper
Writer(s): Scott Cooper / Louis Bayard (novel)

I do consider death to be one of poetry’s most exalted themes.

What if, before intentionally earning a court martial at West Point, Edgar Allan Poe helped solve a murder that ultimately drew thematic parallels to his later work with the assistance of prophetic poems told to him in dream by his dead mother? Well, Louis Bayard sought to answer that question with his novel The Pale Blue Eye, presently adapted by writer/director Scott Cooper for the big screen. Poe (Harry Melling) is but a cadet who fancies himself a poet—a bystander with an aptitude for problem solving that intrigues lead character Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) enough to hire him on the sly as his “man inside.” The victim: an apparent suicide whose body was later relieved of its heart post-mortem.

With a sprawling cast that relegates Robert Duvall and Charlotte Gainsbourg to only a couple scenes each so as not to bog down the proceedings, Cooper drops us into the Hudson Valley’s isolated militarized zone with everyone on-edge about rumors of Satanic rituals. Landor is hired by the school itself to try and keep matters in-house, his reputation as an investigator of renown enough to gloss over his recent bout of alcoholism as a result of the death and disappearance of his wife and daughter respectively. He and Poe strike up a infectious rapport as they try to uncover a mystery that gets more complicated by the day … and rising body count.

Marked by a finely-tuned narrative progression that dabbles in the occult to keep the players and us on our toes, there’s really nobody on-screen who doesn’t set off our radars at least once. The Captain (Simon McBurney) who’s always watching with a skeptical eye from the fringes. The school doctor (Toby Jones) who’s either careless or conniving as far as his current coroner work. His eccentric wife (Gillian Anderson), their ill daughter (Lucy Boynton), and brashly confident son (Harry Lawtey). The latter’s peer group of other cadets speaking in riddles and inside jokes (Fred Hechinger and Joey Brooks). Heck, even Poe himself (Melling is very good) once lies are revealed. Landor must absorb it all.

The film starts down a suspense thriller road before settling into what becomes a rather straightforward murder mystery, complete with long-winded recaps and brainstorming sessions between Landor and Poe that ultimately lead towards a grand Poirot-esque unraveling of hidden truths. Cooper keeps a tight ship with some well-placed imagery of what haunts Landor (Bale is also great), setting the mood and also the stage for what’s to come. It gets much darker than I anticipated and excels at maintaining an air of sophisticated drama while also delving into some horror corners. And despite the denouement not proving too difficult to guess, it never feels forced. A solid piece all-around.