So Cold the River

So Cold the River perhaps is Michael Koryta's version of The Shining. While the rich and layered story of the book got some tweaks and alterations for its film adaptation, the simplified iteration sadly can't give the book real justice. It's a slow burn and talkie film that mostly resembles an episode of a mediocre late-night TV mystery show.

This film had some interesting elements, but the sum total was a bit of a mess.

First, they were clearly going for an atmospheric supernatural vibe, which made for a very dark and oppressive feel. This is definitely a movie that relied too heavily on dim lighting in order to establish the mood.

Second, while the location was gorgeous it was incongruous with the actual story. You're supposed to believe this is set in a small town where everyone knows everyone, yet everything takes place in an enormous, ultra plush, and thriving hotel. Sorry, those two concepts really did not gel as presented.

Third, this film leaned into metaphors, HARD. Symbolism can build intrigue if it is thoughtfully paired with a story, but this film feels like a lot of stuff and nonsense was thrown in exclusively to pad the runtime.

Fourth, there is no real resolution to this film. The makers wove a lot of potential threads together, but then just left them dangling at the end. Some concepts popped to merely blink out of relevance, others seems attached to the main plot, but then went nowhere, and the overarching plot points were never resolved in any meaningful way.

This film is worse than one that leaves you with unanswered questions because when it ends you don't even have fully formed questions.

Giving credit where credit is do, there are some beautiful shots in this film that offer visual interest, despite the rather drab lighting.

Alas, this film fails because it invested far too much in setting up scenes and not enough in developing a cogent story.

Ultimately watching this is like driving around in a car for a really long time, only to discover you've ended up somewhere you could have walked to faster.

Its times like this I miss the message board here..

The movie has some nice scares, the acting is fine, the scenery is lovely.

I did not understand anything of it, though.

I love slow burners, and being a 54 year old grandma, I have seen some weird movies in my time. I normally understand them, and like them. This one was lost on me. I have no idea what happened in the end.

I dig open endings, but I do not dig confusing ones.

Help..?

As I have seen only one genuine review here (those giving it 10/10 must belong to some lobbyists that have certain personal interests in promoting it), giving it a 1, since there is no meaning, no explanation and no logic to the whole script, I felt like some enlightenement and honnesty were needed here. If you can spend an hour and a half simply looking at some nice imaging and actors that try hard enough to make it worthwhile, go for it!

If you expect to understand anything or simply have something that stays with you after this watch, just pass it, since the script is awful and it makes no sense whatsoever.

I read the book when it first came out and really enjoyed it. As writer myself From the same neck of the woods as Koryta I'm a big fan of his atmospheric storytelling. I remember enjoying the book, great characters and engaging plot, not Koryta's best work but still enjoyable. About a year ago I was on a long road trip and decided to listen to the audio book on Audible. Much to my surprise I found myself hearing the story in a much different way than when I read it and actually enjoyed it even more.

Now the movie. I was really looking forward to the film version. I knew from the trailer that the main character Eric was changed to Erica and fellow historical investigator Kellen Cage turned into a female intern. Josiah Bradford's character was also drastically different than in the book and I'm not sure I liked the change to be honest. The movie certainly had some elements of the book, the hotel was a nice setting and the cinematography wasn't bad, the acting felt a bit phoned in. The major element missing from the movie was the sense of place the book had, the feeling of traveling back in time in Eric's (Erica's) and Josiah's mind just didn't translate well to the big screen. Unfortunately some books just don't translate well from written word to screen and unfortunately this may be one of them. It's possible if the movie was longer and more was included it could have come across better, unfortunately I think an hour and a half is just not long enough to tell a story with the amount of depth the book has.