OUT OF BLUE
Inner space…
Brit director Carol Morley has quickly established herself as a master of mood and mystery with Dreams Of A Life and The Falling. So who better to take on Martin Amis’ 1997 novel Night Train, a spaced oddity of a crime story that muses on cosmology and chaos theory, no less?
The plot, insubstantial as moonlight, sees a wounded, world-weary detective (Patricia Clarkson) investigate the death of a renowned astrophysicist (Mamie Gummer). But anyone desiring a propulsive procedural thriller will no doubt feel that Out Of Blue disappears up its black hole. It is instead a characterbased, cerebral headscratcher that bites off more than it can chew, proving that the mysteries of the universe are indeed unfathomable.
Despite its imperfections, though, Out Of Blue succeeds as a fascinating commentary on the film noir genre, switching out the traditional male bruiser protagonist for a female PI haunted by an abusive past.
And despite its cosmic concerns, Morley’s film trades its telescope for a microscope as it zooms in on the human condition. Sure, we’re infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things, but an immense gravitas is nonetheless granted to our hopes, pains and conflicts.
Out Of Blue is a bold, discombobulating film, dipped in Lynchian wooziness and by turns monotonous and mesmerising, profound and portentous.
To riff on the 2001 tagline, it’s the ultimate trip, if a little bumpy. Jamie Graham
THE VERDICT
Morley’s enigmatic mystery scrutinises the stars and the soul. Flawed but captivating.