The Pale Blue Eye (Netflix, 2022)

The Pale Blue Eye is a dark and moody thriller, starring Christian Bale as a world-weary detective trying to solve a case with the help of a young Edgar Allan Poe.

The Pale Blue Eye is based on a book by Louis Bayard and written for the screen and directed by Scott Cooper, who also made the movie Crazy Heart (2009), that finally won Jeff Bridges an Oscar.

It is also the third time that Cooper and Bale worked together, after the also dark Out of The Furnace (2013) and Hostiles (2017). 

Bale is known for his extravert or even extravagant roles, but this time his part is more subdued. Center stage goes to Harry Melling, who first became famous as Dudley Dursley in the HarryPotter-movies. Now he gives us a delightful interpretation of real life mystery writer Edgar Allen Poe, when he was a young cadet at West Point Academy.

The Pale Blue Eye does indeed take place at the famous American military academy in upstate New York. The year is 1830 and the case concerns the apparent suicide of a young cadet. Which sometimes happened under the harsh conditions at the Academy. As someone dryly observes: ‘We try to drive our students, without driving them too far.’

But this time it's an even more shocking affair. After the night in which the body was found swinging from a tree, someone snuck into the room where the corpse was kept - and removed its heart.

The horror. Enter Christian Bale as Augustus Landor. A veteran of the New York Police, who came to the area with his wife and daughter. His wife died and his daughter left, so Landor is bitter and unhappy.

It doesn’t stop him from accepting the case or having the young Poe as his helper, in a movie which at times feels like an Edgar Allan Poe story directed by Tim Burton.

The wintry landscapes match the tone of the movie and The Pale Blue Eye is worth settling into just for the value of the cinematography, the production design and the great (supporting cast), that includes Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Toby Jones, Timothy Spall and even the great Robert Duvall.

At just over two hours, the story takes a while to get going, but there are some surprises in the second half that make The Pale Blue Eye absolutely worth watching.