Dark Places

I didn't care much for Gone Girl -- maybe it was Ben Affleck -- but I was drawn to this movie despite that. Maybe it was Charlize Theron, maybe it was Nicholas Hoult, whom I have enjoyed watching grow into a first rate actor since his days in Skins. In any case, whatever reservations I had at first rapidly dissolved into a distant memory as the first ten minutes passed.

Usually I roll my eyes at flashback-driven efforts, but not so with Dark Places. Each switch back to 1985 is like the tumblers on a lock giving that satisfying click as you pick it, breeding anticipation and certainty that there is a rich reward at the end for your efforts, every scene evoking a subtle revelation that drives the story onward.

Well cast, well scored, well directed, Dark Places deserves more recognition than it has garnered. If I had to point out one flaw, it would be a forgivable one; MISFITS swag was not that easy to come by in 1985.

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.

This film tells the story of a woman whose mother and her two sisters were murdered on their farm at night. Her brother is convicted of murdering the three family members. She gets contacted by a club that is intrigued by mysterious murders, and she is forced to confront her multilayered traumatic past.

"Dark Places" is a truly haunting drama that keeps me captivated thoroughly. Viewers are lead to believe from the beginning that there is something Libby is not completely honest about. As more of the past is revealed in flashbacks, and even more of the past is unravelled through various interviews, the shocking truth is finally revealed. The ending is very poignant. I really feel for Libby and Ben, who have squandered almost thirty years away. They could have lived and loved, but they let naïveté get in the way big time. I do hope more people will watch this film. I think it's very well done, and it leaves me wondering all the would haves and could haves in the plot.

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.

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