The Pale Blue Eye - 2022 film review

Edgar Allan Poe is the gift who gives on giving as far as writers and film-makers are concerned. It's not just that his stories and poems so endlessly intriguing and memorable that they continue to fascinate. His life story was equally extraordinary. I mentioned a few of the novels he'd inspired when reviewing the film The Raven on this blog eleven years back (was it really such a long time ago? Blimey). I haven't read Louis Bayard's novel The Pale Blue Eye, but I have now watched Scott Cooper's film based on it.

The first thing to say about the film is that it is, at times, visually stunning. The cast is also truly impressive. Christian Bale plays Gus Landor, a fictitious character and ace detective who acts as a mentor to the young Edgar Allan Poe (played by Harry Melling, grandson of Patrick Troughton, who was such a great Doctor Who) - the story is set at the time Poe was a cadet at West Point. But it's entirely fictitious, though there's no shortage of nods to Poe's work.

Landor, an alcoholic who has retired from detection, is called in to West Point to investigate the hanging of a cadet whose heart was removed from his corpse post mortem. The folk at West Point include a superintendent, played by Timothy Spall, and Dr Daniel Marquis, played by Toby Jones. The doctor's wife is played by Gillian Anderson and his daughter by Lucy Boynton. There are also parts for Charlotte Gainsbourg, Simon McBurney, and Robert Duvall. With a cast like that, how can you fail?

And this film doesn't fail. On the other hand, it doesn't grip quite as much as it ought to, in my opinion. Why is this? The screenplay, is the answer. The pace is at times sluggish and there are scenes towards the end that are over the top. As a result, the film didn't fully live up to my expectations, which were high. But I was glad to have watched it, and I'd be interested to read Bayard's novel, to see how it compares.