The latest murder mystery from Netflix sees Christian Bale (The Dark Knight) in the middle of Edgar Allan Poe’s origin story. “The Pale Blue Eye” is an adaptation of the 2006 gothic thriller of the same name by Louis Bayard. The story takes place in 1830s upstate New York and follows Veteran detective Augustus Landor (Bale), who investigates a series of grisly murders with the help of a young cadet who will eventually go on to become the world-famous author Edgar Allan Poe played by Harry Melling (Harry Potter Franchise).
Courtesy of Scott Garfield
With an incredibly talented ensemble cast and fascinating characters, this whodunit has no shortage of suspects. Timothy Spall as the West Point colonel who seems to want the crimes solved quickly and quietly, Toby Jones plays the surgeon who is called on to perform the autopsy, Gillian Anderson is his high-society wife, constantly finding drama. Harry Lawtey plays their son, Artemus, a fellow cadet, their ailing daughter, Lea, is played by Bohemian Rhapsody’s Lucy Boynton. Robert Duvall plays Jean-Pépé, an expert in the occult, who lives a semi-hermetic life in the woods of New York state.
In an interview with Vanity Fair Christian Bale explained a bit about each characters motives, “Every character in the story has secrets, and while Poe seems to be the one who is clearly putting on a performance, he is actually the most sincere. Everyone else is more quietly putting on a performance, but no one is who they are pretending to be.”
The film is directed by Scott Cooper, who has previously worked with Christian Bale on the films “Out of the Furnace” in 2013 and on the film “Hostiles” in 2017. That being said, you know you are in for something special if these two are back together again. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly in 2013, Scott Cooper compared Bale to a Maserati saying “All you have to do is feather the accelerator — a note or an adjustment — and he’s off!”
Courtesy of Scott Garfield
We have seen Harry Melling come a long way from playing Dudley Dursley, especially when we saw him in the 2020 film The Devil All The Time and in The Queen’s Gambit. Now we get to see the full scope of his talent as he takes on his most complex role yet, alongside some of Hollywood’s finest.
So whether you’re looking for a new murder mystery to sink your teeth into teeth into, or you’re a fan of period dramas, or this cast has got your attention, this drama is just too good to resist.
The Pale Blue Eye is scheduled to be released in select theaters on December 23, 2022, before its streaming release on January 6, 2023, by Netflix.
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