The Pale Blue Eye 

A Netflix original, released Dec. 23, 2022

Based on the novel by Louis Bayard

Directed by Scott Cooper

Starring Christian Bale and Harry Melling

Somebody recommended it. And it was listed as trending on Netflix. So, I watched it. And I absolutely loved it. Until the last 20 minutes.

Never mind.

The Pale Blue Eye stars Christian Bale as Augustus Landor, a former prosecutor recruited to solve a murder mystery at West Point in or about 1830, and Harry Melling as Edgar Allen Poe, one of the cadets attending the school.

I’m a fan of Christian Bale – but, in this story, he didn’t work for me. Harry Melling, though, who I didn’t recognize as an actor I’d seen before, was absolutely riveting. That, and the fact that I’m a fan of E.A. Poe, was more than enough for me.

There is, by the way, a good reason that I didn’t recognize Melling.

He is best-known for playing chubby little Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter movies. But he lost so much weight between his appearance in The Order of the Phoenix and The Deathly Hallows, Part 1 that the role was almost recast. He managed to keep the part by wearing a fat suit. “I can now shed the child actor thing, like the fat, and start a new career because no one sees me as Dudley,” he said. And that’s what he did.

Critical Reception 

* “The Pale Blue Eye holds together remarkably as a gothic piece of horror… right up to the point that it doesn’t.” (Matthew Monagle, Austin Chronicle)

* “It’s a film that, on an aesthetic level, casts an eerie spell. Shame about its story, though.” (Nick Schager, Daily Beast)

* “A stylish and smart telling of what is at heart macabre malarkey.” (Michael O’Sullivan, Washington Post)

You can watch the trailer here.