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DARK PLACES [2015, France & USA - English]
DARK PLACES [2015, France & USA - English]
Dark Places is Gillian Flynn’s third novel and the latest to make it to the big screen, after last year’s blockbuster “Gone Girl”. Earning average ratings of 4.7 / 10 by Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 40 out of 100 by Metacritic, you will most likely be disappointed if you are expecting to be blown away like the spine-chilling and twisted “Gone Girl”. Charlize Theron takes the lead role as Libby Day, who is only eight years old when her family is brutally murdered in their rural Kansas farmhouse. Almost thirty years later, she is forced to revisit the crime and uncovers the wrenching truths about her family’s tragic. Though seemed like a stretch when director Gilles Paquest-Brenner casted Theron as the damaged woman who has led her life very much as a nonentity, her bigger presence only brought more life to the character. Yes Theron may still look stunning in dirty jeans and a baseball cap (throughout the film), but she was convincing as the deeply troubled, awkward and fouled-mouth woman who is reluctantly pulled back into her biggest nightmare from the past.
There is supposedly much to feast our curiosity and the plot almost convinces us that we are on a grim journey with a staggering twist. But halfway into the story which is unveiled in two timelines (present and flashbacks), the suspense is muddled by the increasingly tedious plot and structure, and soon the curiosity seemed lifeless as it hurtles toward a convoluted ending. There is much served on a platter here, massacre, drug use, Satanism, pedophilia; but is there an impressive dessert to sweep us off our feet at the end, far from it. Much of the knots are left unexplained or given enough focus to make the story potent. I’ve not read Flynn’s novel, but something tells me that the complicated plot may be much more convincing on the page, but onscreen it definitely feels feeble. The film co-stars Christina Hendricks, Nicholas Hoult and Chloë Grace Moretz.
Rating : C-
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