
Maintaining our murder mystery theme for the year 2023, I present to you an unhelpful review of The Pale Blue Eye, based on the novel of the same name by Louis Bayard. This week's movie takes us in a slightly darker, less whimsical direction, in just about every way. So is darker better?
Briefly, and Without Spoilers
The Pale Blue Eye follows a retired detective named Landor (Christian Bale) as he attempts to solve a curious murder at the United States Military Academy (more commonly known as West Point). When a young cadet seemingly kills himself, only to have his heart removed post-mortem, suspicions begin to sway toward something more nefarious. Landor eventually recruits a young Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling) to assist with the investigation.
Set in 1830, Landor and Poe find themselves not only searching for the culprit, but also battling the rigorous structures of the United States Military...as are everyone else.
A Murder Mystery, or a Mystery Murder? (Spoilers Ahead!)
As mentioned in my previous entry, a mystery is only as good as it's big reveal. It turns out, we were solving two mysteries at once.
The first mystery, set up to be the primary mystery, felt pretty run of the mill. Mutilated bodies, witchcraft, a family with closets filled with skeletons. It's definitely a mystery we've seen before, and I think it's safe to say anyone who's watched their fair share of mysteries knew exactly what was coming.

And then we were hit with a surprise second reveal. I have mixed feelings about this reveal. To a certain extent, it felt like the second reveal really drew things out when we thought the story was coming to an end. Because it certainly wasn't a quick reveal. But I did think it was enough of a twist that I didn't see coming. Once it happened, it was clear that the signs were there all along, and all the moments when you wondered why we seemed to brush past certain details and never come back to them suddenly started to make sense.
I still think it's a bit of a coincidence that the two guilty parties happened to be committing crimes at the same time and both scenarios aren't the most original, but I thought the execution was still good enough that originality didn't really matter.
Mystery, good. Stamp of approval.
Cast of Characters
Once again, we're running into the "not enough time for all the characters" problem. This time, I'm less interested in giving certain characters more screentime.
We'll start with the good. The movie was primarily about Landor and Poe, and frankly, both were great. Christian Bale's performance felt very natural and Harry Melling was excellent. Kind of surprising how good he was. Not that I didn't expect that from him, but he really embodied Poe as a complicated yet likeable and believable character with strong opinions and feelings.
Now, I did a little digging, and it turns out Poe did attend West Point for less than a year before getting himself court-martialed (a tension that's mentioned more than once in the movie). Turns out real Poe disliked the military for many of the same reasons fake Poe did.
As for the other characters, there were quite a few that I thought didn't really need to be there and ended up being somewhat one dimensional. The two commanding officers, played by Timothy Spall and Simon McBurney, were clearly only there because someone has to be in charge of West Point. They kind of fulfilled a basic need for basic, military conflict that would bring out the rebellious natures of Landor and Poe. We got a glimpse of something more substantial at the end, but not enough for me to really care.

I had a little trouble keeping track of the cadets. There were a lot of them, they were all white, and aside from Poe, they all kind of started to blend in with one another. Ballinger (Fred Herchinger) filled the role of "jealous and angry bad man is bad with no redeeming qualities" and Artemus Marquis (Harry Lawtey) had his moments, but was mostly just the "stoic brother is stoic" type.
The most wtf character goes to Julia Marquis, played by Gillian Anderson. It's clear she is supposed to be a little unhinged by design, but I frankly don't know what that brings to the story, except to clearly draw suspicion to the family. The whole first conversation she had with Landor was vaguely threatening and also weirdly confusing. As in I think she threatened him, but I don't know with what. Everything about her character was very weird.
I'm a fan of Toby Jones, so I'm a bit partial to his performance, but I also felt like his character was missing a few notes of depth. I thought we were starting to get there when he was speaking with Landor, but they were interrupted too quickly to really go anywhere with that scene.
I thought Lea Marquis was good in her role, considering it was the "sick little sister is sick" role. The reveal that much of what was happening was by her design easily could have occupied more screentime. I really liked the idea that she wasn't necessarily the damsel in distress, but the problem solver of her own problems. Sure, it perpetuates some harmful stereotypes about witches and ambitious women, but I think they tried to give her a little more agency in the role, and I recognize and appreciate that.
Apparently Robert Duvall was in it? Never would've guessed if I hadn't seen the cast list. And his role was mostly expository, so kind of hard to be wowed by the character who's only there to help provide key pieces of information at exactly the right moment. But frankly, I would've loved to have seen more from the character. We always want more from the Gandalf type.
Enough About Them
Overall, I thought the movie was well-done and entertaining. I thought it was paced well, if a bit heavy at times, and despite the amount of chit chat and contemplation, I didn't get bored at any point.
The cinematography was excellent (shot in Pennsylvania) and in many ways provided the perfect backdrop to the rigidity of the academy and the eeriness of the mystery. And the touch of the snow falling off the trees just before Poe confronts Landor at the end offered the perfect visual for the changing of the seasons and the end of the first mystery, the impending doom of Poe and Landor's relationship, and the finality of Landor's last moments.
It was definitely a bit heavy at times. There were some humorous moments, but there's no doubt it was a serious movie. There were also a few moments where I wasn't sure how we got to where we were. The ice house thing was kind of followable, but I have no idea how Poe got into Artemus's inner circle. Was there a code word? Or just a look? Maybe those leaps would have made more sense in the book.
Final Score
JK I don't have a scoring system. But it was a good movie and I'd recommend for a single watch. Not sure it's a movie I'd watch more than once, though.
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