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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

I thought the film had a lot of really cool twist and turns that kept me guessing all the way to the end.

There were a lot of layers too it that did not jumble up on you to become too complicated. I guess the story was flushed out quite well by the filmmaker.

The film had a lot of cool elements too.

Charlize Theron plays Libby Day, the lone survivor of a massacre done by her brother of their entire family. Twenty years later, a convention of geeks that love serial killers, lead by Nicolas Hoult, contact her and pay her to help them prove that her brother did not do it. Even though she said he did Twenty years ago.

The movie lives up to the title. It points out how low a person can get on many different levels.

Good watch.

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.

Dark Places (like a lot of movies, I guess) won't be everyone's cup of tea as it's a pretty slow-paced Thriller that concentrates on a decent cast delivering a good story. If you're more into faster-paced films then you more than likely won't enjoy this.

The story sees Charlize Theron play Libby Day, a young woman who believes that her brother brutally killed her mother and sister when she was 8-years-old. When Lyle Wirth (played by Nicholas Hoult), a member of a crime investigative group, manages to get in touch with Libby, and starts to provide possible evidence on what actually happened, Libby starts to doubt her own recollection of what actually happened that fateful day.

The story may sound a bit dull & unoriginal, but it plays out better than it initially sounds, and it also gets better as it unravels. It's also a story that you have to pay attention to, especially with the flash backs as there is no immediate indication the flash backs have started (but it doesn't take a genius to figure out when a flashback scene is being played). So, with the jumping back & forward from past to present, you do need to watch it carefully to get what is fully going on. Also, while there is no twist as such, the story does keep you guessing as to how it will pan out.

The cast all do a decent job with their individual parts as well, from Theron's performance as Libby Day, a woman who finds it hard to trust anyone and has become a bit of a recluse, to Chloë Grace Moretz's performance of a young manipulative Diondra. Put a decent cast in to deliver a decent story and you have yourself a pretty enjoyable movie.

As I mentioned earlier, it is a pretty slow-paced Thriller, and while I don't mind watching these, there were a few scenes where I thought it dragged a wee bit, but for the most part it is interesting and enjoyable enough.

It's not the best film you'll ever see, but Dark places is a good film that is definitely worth a watch.