Dark Places

Based on the novel by Gillian Flynn, Dark Places is about the gruesome massacre of Patty Day (Christina Hendricks) and her two young daughters on a fateful night of 1985 at their country farmhouse in Kansas. There were two members of the household that survived the death fest, Patty's 14 year old son Ben and her youngest daughter Libby, 8 years old. Ben, who was then accused of participating in cult and anti-Christ practices and child molestation in a day care school, is arrested on the charges of mass murder, doesn't protest or appeal and Libby corroborated the charges in the courtroom.

Cut to 28 years later, Ben is still serving his life sentence and Libby (Charlize Theron) does nothing in particular having extinguished all the social financial support and the royalty earned from the sale of the book published to narrate the events of the Day family tragedy. She is now contacted by Lyle Wirth (Nicolas Hoult) who is acting on behalf of a group of investigators and journalists who believe that Ben was wrongfully punished for the crimes he didn't commit. Unwilling to cooperate initially, Libby is lured into leading the investigation that could potentially falsify her own judgement, memories and statements from her childhood because she sees financial benefits from the deal. As she reconnects with Ben and follows certain leads with the help of Lyle, she slowly starts to uncover the truth behind her dark past and a secret that devastated her family and led to the brutal murders.

Dark Places is perhaps not as cutting edge a thriller as Flynn's other novels like Sharp Objects or Gone Girl are, but certainly plays hard on human psychology, projecting the dark, complex and disturbing aspects of our minds. The suspense is baffling in the end although not really overwhelming and devastating. Charlize Theron shines in her role of the disturbed, indifferent and hardened Libby that was once a lovable little girl.

A lot of people compare Dark Places to Gone Girl and say, book-wise, Gone Girl was the better book. I actually liked Dark Places better, so when I found out they were making it into a movie, I was of course skeptical about whether or not it'd be good. I just finished watching it and was happy that my skepticism was for naught - this movie stayed true to the book. Casting was done well and the flow proved that the screenplay writers & director paid attention to the original book.

The book is dark, has some twists and turns and doesn't gloss over anything. Where in Gone Girl I felt like some scenes were made a little lighter for the screen, Dark Places doesn't have that issue. The sets were also very accurate - it's been YEARS since I read the book, but while watching the movie everything came back to me...the layout of the farm house, the crappy apartment Libby lived in as an adult with her collection of stolen items...all the way down to crap hole Runner was living in...

This is not going to be a big blockbuster. Most people will not like it (as you can tell by the ratings) but I will tell you, if you like thrillers/mysteries with twists and turns then watch it. If you've read the book, watch it. It's not the greatest movie ever done, but it was good enough that I felt compelled to write my first IMDb review.

And even if you don't watch the movie, read the book. If you like Patterson, Demille or Clancy, you'll like Dark Places.

I did not read Dark Places nor Gone Girl (the other Flynn's book) but I can really said that movie is slow but captivating. Theron is as always excellent and modest. Her character does not shine like the female character in Gone Girl; in fact her character is really an accessory to the story that basically happens in flash backs.

As a murder mystery; the end is somewhat unexpected but not completely convincing; but it is obvious that the important thing was the sadness, misery and tough decisions some of the characters had to make and its consequences.

It is an interesting slow cooked movie; far from commercial but worth seeing anyway

This is the first time – ever – that I'm able to write in a review that I read the book before I watched the film! I'm an avid movie fanatic and not much of a book reader, but for some reason I read both Gillian Flynn novels (this one as well as "Gone Girl") before they were turned into Hollywood movies with an all-star cast. "Dark Places" is clearly not as successful as "Gone Girl", because the release got pushed back a couple of times and this one isn't likely to ever end up in the IMDb top 250. Now, I always disliked that typical and clichéd statement: "the book is much better than the film", but I must admit that there's truth in it… Director Gilles Paquet-Brenner's screenplay adaptation is very loyal to Flynn's novel, and thus the basic subject matter is tense and unsettling, but for some inexplicable reason the book is compelling whereas the film is rather tedious… "Dark Places" tells the story of Libby Day. At the tender age of 7, Libby witnessed how her mother and two sisters were brutally slain in their Kansas farm at night, and she confirmed to the authorities that her 15-year-old brother Ben was the culprit. 28 years later, Libby understandably grew up to become an angry, secluded and insecure woman. Driven by financial issues, Libby accepts the peculiar Lyle's offer to attend a meeting of the Kill Club. This bizarre collective exists of people who're investigating infamous (and unsolved) murder cases, and they are convinced that Ben Day is innocent. Reluctant at first, Libby begins to unravel the mystery of what exactly happened on the awful night that ruined her life. The search confronts her with her imprisoned brother and her estranged father, but also brings new secrets to the surface about her mother Patty and her brother's long lost high- school girlfriend Diondra.

It's very strange and difficult to describe, but every new plot twist or revelation that was captivating in the book comes across as implausible in the film. Especially the character of the mother, Patty Day, was much more powerful in the novel. Her hopelessness and desperation isn't properly transferred to the screen and therefore a couple of essential twists near the end become downright unbelievable. Obviously this isn't the fault of the screenplay, because a book lends itself much better to describe emotions and mental states of mind in great detail. This is also the main reason why the protagonist character Libby never truly becomes the intriguing character she deserves to be. "Dark Places" definitely also suffers from a shortage of action, especially during the first hour, and the great potential of the "Kill Club" isn't elaborated properly enough (although that also wasn't the case in the book). Paquet-Brenner does, however, marvelously captivate the grim and depressing atmosphere of the Midwestern American slums and insolvent family farms. The performances are more than adequate as well, with particularly strong roles for Charlize Theron and Nicolas Hoult. Just a week ago, I also saw them act together in "Mad Max: Fury Road" but this is quite a different type of film. Christina Hendricks is amazing as the poor and pitiable single mother and I was also very surprised to see a strong role for Chloë Grace Moretz. "Dark Places" is a great book to read (personally I even preferred it over "Gone Girl) and the film is also definitely worth checking out, but I only recommend either reading the book or watching the film. Otherwise you're guaranteed to stumble upon the flaws more easily.

Dark Places was interesting but not as riveting as I had hoped. I never had a chance to read the book - because the movie came out very early in France - so I watched the film with fresh eyes not knowing what I was in for. Problem solver that I am, I watched the film looking for clues but I fairly quickly had all the right suspects lined up before I even got through a quarter of the movie. I don't know if it's a testament to my "mad" deductive skills or a lack of mystery in the story telling. The exact same thing happened to me with Gone Girl - the book - which is why I didn't finish reading it. I guess I was hopping for more of a challenge with Dark Places, something that would have surprised me at the end.

Anyway, I still enjoyed the film, particularly how Libby's past memories were shot. They had an 1980s feel to them, I mean in the quality of the images, they had an old VHS tape look to them. They were grainy and shaky, which also gave them an horror movie vibe, while at the same time illustrating how Libby feels about them.

The film is like the title suggest dark, and I'm not just talking about the murders but the whole context the characters are in. It's socially realistic, you really feel for the struggling mother (Christina Hendricks) and her kids, the poverty and the hardship of their situation is almost palpable and that's thanks to Hendricks' performance. The rest of the cast is good but Christina Hendricks and Corey Stoll stand out and elevate the film.

So to me Dark Places really depicts how prejudices, despair, and a bunch of white lies can snow ball and change people's lives forever. It's definitely not thriller of the year but the film is not boring. @wornoutspines