In Darkness (2018)

In Darkness (2018)

This film is perfectly watchable, but after almost an hour, when the heroine’s identity is revealed, the film goes off the rails and turns into a turnip.

The use of the handicap of a sense is not a first in cinema, following the example of the chilling Silent Witness released in 1994 (which I must see again, as I hadn’t written about it).

This plot device, designed to heighten the viewer’s tension and, above all, create empathy, is totally absent here, in the name of a vengeance which, while understandable, takes away from the character’s fragility. As a result, we watch this story with indifference, thinking that the film is decidedly flabby.

It’s a journey to the end of boredom, despite an interesting story and a fine cast (yes, yes, Nathalie Dormer is a charming character!). But let’s get down to the actors!

If you’re watching the film purely for Emily Ratajkowski, you should know that we don’t see her for more than twenty minutes. Well, that’s that!

Natalie Dormer is an excellent actress. She captivates, she hypnotizes, she fascinates. But after an hour, she reminds us that she’s also known for all her sex scenes, whether in Game of Thrones or The Tudors. That’s right: she’s played in both!

Ed Skrein plays a rather likeable character here, but not an ultra-markable one. This English actor, filmmaker and rapper played a great villain in Deadpool and also appeared in the third season of Game of Thrones.

Joely Richardson‘s black hair is very dark in this film. It suits her well. This attractive actress – who has nothing to prove – is relatively scary and evil here. But it was a bad choice in her career, because the film isn’t any good.

James Cosmo, very sympathetic in this role. A sick man who doesn’t take his medicine, coughs himself to death and doesn’t want any trouble. He’s the opposite of the charismatic Jan Bijvoet, who’s as detestable as you could wish for in this feature film.

You might think it’s a complex film, but, in fact, if it’s hard to understand (who’s who, who wants what and the multiple whys to which we only get stupid answers…), it’s also because it’s totally illogical. No, it’s a real shame! It started well, though. There was a good plot and then, at some point, things got out of hand and everything went to hell!

Too many elements destroy the whole at the end! The story is convoluted to begin with, but the script – and above all the direction – isn’t sufficiently polished: “behavioral” inconsistencies pollute the plot after the fact) and it’s sad.

Basically: a little 2nd-rate detective story, on the “déjà vu” theme of a blind or disabled girl caught up in a police plot against her will. Nothing new in a story that ends up being boring. The two lead actresses do well, but that’s not enough.

Even if the lead actress is relatively “coherent” in her role as a blind woman, we’re still left wanting more. Not much was missing to make this a good thriller.

It’s easy to get ideas just from reading a synopsis: when I saw “the underbelly of London” mentioned, I already imagined that this film would be a powerful depiction of a hidden urban universe, a rich, dark and hectic adventure. Not so!

Looking back on it now, from the very first minutes I had a strange feeling that something was wrong with this film. The scent of lack of inspiration, no doubt?

Come on! I’m going to take this movie down again and knock it out!

Spoiler alert!
It’s a film about a story that’s been seen, rehearsed and badly done: the basic idea lacks depth, so the authors seem to have tried to flesh it out by adding elements that are either unnecessary (the killer who’s actually a good guy + his sister who’s plotting who knows what? Oh, and there’s a sex scene, with the killer who, given his profession, you’d think is evil, but is actually nice), or elements that are so far-fetched as to be hard to make believable (the antagonist is a war criminal from Eastern Europe who has taken refuge in the heroine’s country? They sure went a long way to find their antagonist! I don’t know, reading it now, I find the lack of simplicity very amusing), the result is a laborious narrative, a feeling of vain artifice. Finally, as far as I’m concerned, at no point did I find it really natural. And it’s abominably slow…

I felt no real atmosphere in this film (let alone that I felt betrayed after an hour), but I was impressed by the heroine’s apartment, probably the least soundproofed in London. You see, this is typically the kind of facility that makes a mockery of verisimilitude in order to build a story.

The ending is stupid! Spoiler, again: if she could see, why didn’t she pick up the damn poison when it fell out during her face-to-face with her father?

It’s a stupid movie, not at all thought through, they wanted to create a surprise at the end for the viewer but didn’t respect his intelligence at all! for that alone, I give it a very low score.