Film Review - Dark Places (2015)

Dark Places is based off of the novel by Gillian Flynn (she also wrote Gone Girl) and Charlize Theron stars as Libby Day who saw her mother (Christina Hendricks) and her 2 sisters murdered one night in 1985, one day a man named Lyle (Nicholas Hoult) offers her a chance to redo the case right with a new investigation but some Dark Places of the past are never easy to explore when you live through them as a child.

Now I was very much looking forward to this film primarily because I really loved Gone Girl from last year which Flynn herself scripted and David Fincher directed plus it has a terrific cast with Theron, Hoult, Hendrinks, Chloe Moretz from Kick Ass and Tye Sheridan the new Scott Summers/Cyclops among others but with Gilles Paquet-Brenner on Script and Director duties this time could this film deliver the goods?

Sadly it did not and I have to say with a fairly heavy heart that this movie is a major disappointment possibly the biggest I've had all year which would see it beat out Avengers: Age of Ultron but why do I feel this way well there are 3 reasons why:

- The first is the script itself and frankly it's a mess, scenes don't play out in a way that feels like it's part of a 3 act narrative nor do they contain any sense of cohesion within the story that Brenner is trying to adapt into a film now I haven't read Flynn's book and maybe that was how it played out in the book but here as a written screenplay like I said it's a mess.

And really when you think back to Gone Girl it didn't have that problem it had some similarities to be sure but there Flynn and Fincher crafted a coherent narrative that you care about and the scenes flow logically into the next one but I guess you're bound to expect that when you have a master filmmaker and the original author on board instead of someone else doing those 2 jobs.

- The second reason is the characters themselves and all of them are boring to watch and you don't care about what's happening to them in the film, Libby just feels like another lost soul haunted by childhood trauma and unable to move on, Lyle feels like a weird man even if he has good intentions in his heart and soul and the Day family are the stereotypical low income family that just feels miserable all the time.

And again going back to Gone Girl (and here is where the comparisons between the 2 films will stop) the Dunne's Nick and Amy were compelling characters that had a drive, a purpose and a motivation to do what they do in that film whereas here that doesn't happen.

- And lastly the cast is pretty much wasted in their roles, I love Theron but here she just looks miserable on screen and was probably wishing she was playing Furiosa again, Sheridan and Hoult try their level best to make their limited characters work but this isn't their fault so I'll give them a pass, Moretz just mopes the entire time she's on screen and has that look on her face as if all she wants to do is cry and in the meantime Hendricks one of the most beautiful women in the world today is totally unbelievable as a down and out farm mother.

And so that was Dark Places, probably the biggest disappointment I've had all year at the movies, I wish I could recommend it I really do but instead just rewatch Gone Girl as that is a far better use of your time and your money, 1.5 out of 5.