Review: Dark Places
Dark Places, the film adaptation of Gillian Flynn's second novel, is helmed by French director Gilles Paquet-Brenner. Flynn wrote Gone Girl, the hugely successful marital mystery which sparked a cultural conversation last year when David Fincher brought it to the big screen. Paquet-Brenner is not David Fincher nor is he Ang Lee. The comparison to Lee is apt because the Taiwanese director has a keen understanding of cultures outside his own, bringing an outsider's insight into what seem to be uniquely English (Sense and Sensibility) or American (The Ice Storm, Brokeback Mountain) stories.
Dark Places is set in Kansas, and that detail is an integral part of this tragic tale. Many parts of rural America or the Midwest possess a regionally specific sensibility, which can be God-fearing, conservative, prone to paranoia, and allergic to difference. The Kansas of Dark Places is one that will deem you a failure as a wife and mother if your husband is an alcoholic deadbeat and your four children are wearing hand-me-downs and living on welfare. Never mind that you're doing all you can to run your farm, put food on table, and keep your family together. If you are Patty Day (Christina Hendricks) and your teenage son Ben (Tye Sheridan) is alleged to be a child molester and a devil worshipper, then it is your fault.
Perhaps better parenting would have prevented the brutal deaths of Patty and her two eldest daughters at Ben's hands. Her youngest, Libby, managed to survive the so-called Kansas Prairie Massacre and even profited off her trauma by exploiting the public's obsession with the killings. Decades later, the public have turned their attentions and donations to other little girls with sad stories to tell. With her funds dwindling, Libby (Charlize Theron) reluctantly agrees to appear as the special guest star at the Kill Club, a group consumed with true crime stories. With the lure of additional cash, the group's treasurer Lyle (Nicholas Hoult) convinces her to help them prove her brother's innocence before his files are permanently destroyed.
"I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ" are the first words uttered by the adult Libby, who firmly believes she has her father's bad blood coursing through her veins. That biological inheritance is easier to believe than having to confront some very painful truths, including her own shaky testimony which helped to convict her brother. Libby is defensive and antisocial and she does not hesitate to bite the hand that feeds her - traits that made her an endlessly fascinating character on the page. Those characteristics are not quite as pronounced onscreen, but they lose none of their force in Theron's portrayal. Physically, the distinctly Amazonian actress bears no resemblance to the diminutive protagonist in Flynn's novel, but that's no matter. Libby is not defined by her size but rather the internal conflict that erupts when, despite her unwillingness to confront the past, she is drawn to uncover the truth of what really happened on that fateful night.
Theron expresses the conflict with skill and nuance. Seeing Ben in prison for the first time after almost 30 years, you can sense her trying to reconcile the image of her brother the killer with the brother she loved when she was a little girl. Whilst Theron is her usual excellent self, it is Hendricks who is the most outstanding as the overburdened woman who does not fully appreciate her own strength and worth until it is far too late.
One can't significantly fault the film. It is well put together, but it is too straightforward to be impactful. Paquet-Brenner does a good job given the density of plot, but fails to elevate the material into something beyond a mere potboiler. What ultimately unravels the film - and what makes the character's motivations and final reveal unbelievable - is the director's inability to understand that Midwestern setting, whose inherent desolation was prime breeding ground for idle hands and confused desperation.
Dark Places
Directed by: Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Written by: Gilles Paquet-Brenner; adapted from the novel by Gillian Flynn
Starring: Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Christina Hendricks, Chloë Grace Moretz, Tye Sheridan, Corey Stoll, Drea De Matteo, Sean Bridgers, Glenn Morshower
