The Pale Blue Eye (2022)

	Directed by: Scott Cooper	COUNTRY USA GENRE Mystery/Thriller NORWEGIAN TITLE The Pale Blue Eye RUNNING TIME 130 minutes
	Produced by: Scott Cooper Christian Bale John Lesher Tyler Thompson
	Written by (based on the novel by Louis Bayard): Scott Cooper

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Augustus Landor	Christian Bale
Cadet Edgar Allan Poe	Harry Melling	½
Mrs. Julia Marquis	Gillian Anderson
Lea Marquis	Lucy Boynton
Patsy	Charlotte Gainsbourg	-
Dr. Daniel Marquis	Toby Jones
Cadet Artemus Marquis	Harry Lawtey
Captain Hitchcock	Simon McBurney	½
Mattie	Hadley Robinson	-
Superintendent Thayer	Timothy Spall	½
Jean Pepe	Robert Duvall

Review

At times, this gothic murder mystery set in and around the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1830, where the now renowned poet Edgar Allan Poe was a student at the time, does indeed feel like the unnerving time capsule filmmaker Scott Cooper (Out of the Furnace, Hostiles) intended for it to be. And when it does, an almost sensational performance by the talented Harry Melling as Poe is a magnetic focal point. Other times, however, The Pale Blue Eye cannot escape the aura of contrivance which runs through the script and the formula Cooper chooses for his narrative denouement. Whenever the picture seems to have been able to mesmerize us with Louis Bayard's often delightful dialogue or some effective albeit conventional twists and turns, Cooper pulls us back to our inescapable Netflix reality with another red herring or an overembellished scene. With better and less controlled storytelling plus a little edge outside of the ultimately obvious violence, The Pale Blue Eye could have been really good. The casting and the performances of Melling, Christian Bale and Gillian Anderson had deserved it. Also with Lucy Boynton, Toby Jones, Simon McBurney, Timothy Spall, and 90-year-old Robert Duvall in an impressive two-scene part.