The Pale Blue Eye

A detective teams with a burgeoning literary genius in this historic mystery

Christian Bale and Harry Melling trade evidence and literary allusions in The Pale Blue Eye.

Once upon a midnight dreary, a body was found hanging weirdly, over the quaint and curious campus of West Point of yore.

OK, I’ll stop.

When a cadet’s body is found hanged and missing a heart on the campus of West Point Military Academy, the officers in charge panic. The school is relatively new to America and seen as an experiment. It wouldn’t do to have cadets murdered.

Fearing a scandal would shut down the school, the superintendent hires detective Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) to quietly root out the murderer so the school may deal with the issue without gaining national notice. Landor immediately sees some oddities about the crime, but no one will talk to him.

The cadets and the school staff are more interested in upholding reputation than they are in discovering a murderer. Stymied, Landor resorts to recruiting the only cadet that will talk to him — a rather melancholic soldier named Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling). Poe fancies himself a poet, tells Landor that his dead mother often talks to him in dreams, and almost aggressively odd. But he also has a keen insight when looking at clues and picking apart stories.

As Landor and his new protégé pick through the evidence, they realize that something far darker than murder may be occurring at West Point.

Based on a book by Louis Bayard, The Pale Blue Eye is more a tribute to the works of Poe than it is a whodunit. In fact, the murderer is almost incidental to the slow atmospheric film, which, like Poe’s works, is filled with excellent details, fascinating concepts, and writing that is just a bit dry to modern ears.

Still, if you’re a fan of Poe [Full disclosure, as a Marylander, your reviewer is legally required to be a fan of Poe, John Waters, and Old Bay], The Pale Blue Eye is the type of deliberate mystery that Poe’s Purloined Letter would have inspired. It has a lot going for it — there’s the occult, a tragic backstory, and an odd couple investigative duo. Think of it as Benoit Blanc teaming up with a Hot Topic Goth for his next investigation (you can have that one for free, Rian Johnson).

But unfortunately, people who tune in expecting another Knives Out style movie will likely be disappointed. This isn’t filled with eat-the-rich satire or snazzy set decoration. The Pale Blue Eye is an old-fashioned mystery, that’s more about the investigation process and building tension via atmospheric shots of the forest than it is about snappy dialogue.  

Director Scott Cooper is great at producing atmospheric films. His past ventures, like Antlers, are wonderful at setting a tone for the piece. His weakness, however, are scripts that seem clunky. The Pale Blue Eye isn’t any different. The film has plenty of personality in the background, with some solid performances, but the script features some stunningly on-the-nose dialogue and plot holes that will confound you if you think about them too much.

Still, it’s always nice to see Christian Bale look like he’s having fun in a film. Here, his gruff Landor seems to lighten up as he works with Poe. While the cadet is often mystifying, Landor seems to genuinely warm to the boy as they work together.

For his part, Melling is a fantastic Poe. He manages to strike the exact right balance of southern fop and weirdo mystic that the legend of Poe has become. He’s keen when observing details, but also obsessed with telling people about the verse he and his dead mother dreamed up the night before. It’s a winning, scene-stealing performance, and one that redeems poor Poe from the cinematic disaster that was John Cusack’s dour portrayal in The Raven.

Matching Melling’s energy is Gillian Anderson, who pops up in The Pale Blue Eye to deliver one of the most delightfully loopy performances of her career. It’s a real treat to see Anderson, who is usually confined to brittle, uptight characters, play fast and loose with sanity as she wanders in and out of scenes.

If you’re a fan of Poe’s works and love to hunt for literary Easter Eggs in films, The Pale Blue Eye will be an enjoyable watch. But if you’re in the market for a breezy whodunit, you may find yourself enjoying this…nevermore.

Verdict: Fans of Poe’s atmospheric, deliberately paced stories will enjoy this slow character-driven mystery.

The Pale Blue Eye is rated R and available on Netflix January 6.