Charlize Theron’s strong performance brings light to Dark Places
Dark Places
(out of 4) Starring Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult. Directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner. 113 minutes. Opens Friday at Scotiabank Toronto and Cineplex Vaughan. An old crime. A tormented survivor. An innocent man.
Dark Places takes moviegoers down a familiar road that would have been far more satisfying if the final destination wasn’t so utterly convoluted and implausible.
Still, it is, at the outset, a reasonably engaging murder mystery, alternating between present and past, with a brooding performance by Oscarwinner Charlize Theron that elevates the material from mediocre into bearable.
Theron plays Libby Day, the sole survivor of a brutal crime that took the lives of her mother and two older sisters 28 years before. Libby has been living off the kindness of strangers ever since, but the money is running low and, since she’s never held down a real job, options are limited.
Nicholas Hoult plays Lyle Wirth, a member of the Kill Club, a group of amateur detectives who believe Libby’s brother, Ben, is innocent of the crime. While Ben professes his innocence, why hasn’t he appealed his conviction in almost three decades?
Libby, who has her own reasons to believe in her brother’s guilt, is nonetheless forced to delve into the deep, dark past and, with the clock running out on any chance of exonerating her brother, time is of the essence.
French director Gilles PaquetBrenner — adapting the novel of the same title — delivers a reasonably suspenseful tale populated by a slew of sordid players, bringing an outsider’s view to the seamier side of middle America that actually comes across as both gritty and fresh.
Theron is fierce yet vulnerable, commanding the screen throughout as a woman bearing deep psychological scars (and secrets of her own) who has never given herself a real chance to live. It’s a performance that borders on heartbreaking.
There are also some strong performances from the supporting cast, including Christina Hendricks as Libby’s long-dead mother, Sean Bridgers as her ne’er-do-well father, Run- ner, and Corey Stoll as imprisoned older brother Ben.
The younger performers don’t fare as well, with Tye Sheridan underplaying the role of the younger Ben and Chloe Grace Moretz overplaying the role of his bad-girl girlfriend, Diondra.
There’s a decent score by Gregory Tripi that complements the sombre mood of the film, but the cinematography by Barry Ackroyd often feels as flat as the Kansas landscape.
The film clocks in at close to two hours in large part because the storyline is so dense with suspects and clues, most of them red herrings, involving child sexual abuse and satanic worship.
Paquet-Brenner also muddles the conclusion, failing to capitalize on a climactic scene and delivering a solution that will require careful attention to understand.
Fortunately, Theron’s great performance saves Dark Places from being a murky mess.