Change Your Image
evondorster
Reviews
The Midnight Sky (2020)
Who is Iris?
Clooney was wonderful and the story was for me not too slowly paced, but what I want to discuss (Spoilers alert!) is the character of Iris. Augustine first finds a little girl who has been left behind when the rest of the station packs up and leaves. He discovers her name when he sees her drawing a flower and asks her if it is an iris and then if it is her name. She nods. Towards the end of the film, Augustine is in contact with members of a space ship returning to earth and is asked by a woman communicating with him for his name. He responds and asks her hers. When she says she is Iris, he answers that he already knew that. We see her face and then the little girl's face and they look alike. Then a flashback to young Augustine driving in a car with a blond woman and in the back seat is the young girl Iris. In another moment Augustine sees the blond woman and then realizes that he is looking at the young girl. In the final scene of the film, we see Augustine and young Iris standing in the sunset and then Augustine alone. So, I am supposing that we are to understand that the appearance of Iris in the station was entirely in his imagination, and that then the woman who communicates with him is the real Iris, perhaps the daughter he left behind when he left the blond woman. Did anyone else out there arrive at the same conclusion? Let me know.
Dark Places (2015)
Dark Places indeed
What do you expect from a story with a title like that? You do indeed find them in this earnest and thoughtful movie. A fifteen-year-old boy accused of pedophilia and Satan worship who gets his girlfriend pregnant and is then accused of murdering his mother and two sisters by his third sister - how much darker can you get without it seeming too contrived?
As with Flynn's other tale brought to the cinema, Gone Girl, there is a mystery at the heart of the story that leads to a surprise ending that has been carefully built up but is nonetheless completely unexpected. A constellation of great character actors helps populate this dreary landscape of poverty and despair. And it does end with a note of resolution and hope. The truth shall set you free.
The plot revolves around an event that takes place in 1985 and an investigation thirty years later that seeks justice for the boy sent to jail for killing three family members. Fans of the book should be pleased with the faithful and sensitive adaptation.
I went last night to the world premiere in Paris. Charlize Theron was there, thanking the French people for understanding her attraction to dark places. Her brilliant performance may not get her another Oscar - the film itself is not the sort of story that many will find entertaining - but she has again created a memorable character who suffers and is redeemed.