‘The Pale Blue Eye,” a film now streaming on Netflix, is the second project for actor Christian Bale and director Scott Cooper. They did “Hostiles.” in 2017, with Wes Studi and Rosamunde Pike. While the latter had sun-filled days and open spaces. “Pale Blue Eye” was shot on dark winter days, among snow-packed buildings, with the sun buried behind clouds giving way to darkness.
But it’s a dark tale. Based on a 2003 novel by the same name by author Louis Bayard, it is set at West Point, New York, in 1830 — the same year that Edgar Allan Poe was a cadet.
Retired detective Augustus Landor (Bale) is called to the school to solve a brutal murder of one of the students, Cadet Leroy Fry. He was found hanging from a tree near the school. But as if that wasn’t bad enough, he was found in the morgue the next morning with his heart removed. The school’s superintendent, Col. Thayer, knows Landor’s reputation and wants the killer brought to justice before the press gets hold of the story. A day later, another cadet is found murdered, this time with both heart and his genitals removed.
The school’s doctor hasn’t a clue. But one cadet has spoken with Landor about the incidents and offered his assistance. Edgar Allan Poe spent a year at West Point, after serving five years in the army as an artillery specialist. He was accepted at the academy in 1830. Using him and his imagination in solving such a dark mystery was inspired creative genius by Bayard. I’m only sorry that no one took it upon themselves to soften actor Harry Melling’s ridiculous pseudo-Southern accent.
Toby Jones plays the school’ s physician, Dr. Daniel Marquis, whose wife (a completely unrecognizable Gillian Anderson) can’t quite contain her curiosity about the death of Landor’s wife and the disappearance of his daughter. The Marquis family has a daughter, a beauty named Lea who suffers from epilepsy. It’s here that the storyline begins to blur, with plot devices that would have been more believable 200 years prior.
But it’s streaming on Netflix if you’re up for some atmospheric fiction.
Toni Clem is a Paris resident and has been writing Deja View for more than 30 years.
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