In Darkness (2018)

Warning: I’m going to spoil the final twist and a lot of what comes before it, but it’s the film’s own damn fault!

Blind pianist Sofia (Natalie Dormer) leads a rather solitary life in London, clearly not having any close friends or family. One can’t help but get the impression that – outside of her work in an orchestra – stumbling onto her party girl upstairs neighbour Veronique (Emily Ratajkowski) from time to time is the closest human contact she’s got.

So it might come as a surprise to the audience when Sofia acoustically witnesses what sounds very much like the murder of Veronique and pretends neither to have known the girl nor to have heard the murder when questioned by the investigating policeman Mills (Neill Maskell). She also doesn’t mention how Veronique managed to get her a gig playing at a private party of the girl’s Serbian war criminal turned politically protected philanthropist father Radic (Jan Bijvoet).

Clearly, Sofia has some secrets of her own that somehow connect to the Yugoslavian Civil War - secrets so big, she doesn’t even come clean when she’s hunted for a USB stick Veronique managed to hide with her without her noticing. Also involved will be Radic’s right hand woman (Joely Richardson) and her brother and private hitman Marc (Ed Skrein). But we all know how professional killers are with blind women.

For the longest part of its running time, I was rather enamoured with Anthony Byrne’s In Darkness, particularly the immensely stylish ways the director finds to acoustically but also visually impress the importance of sound to its lead character, emphasising the sources of sounds and the way sound travels in the staging of many scenes.

It’s a visually rich and striking film, turning nights strangely colourful while still emphasizing the shadows at the core of its complicated and emotionally somewhat twisted plots, while never seeming to overindulge in technical trickery, creating an often dream-like world for its thriller plot to take place in instead of the surface realistically one many examples of the genre prefer. In this it shares – at least in my eyes – the feel of the best giallos, though there is, of course, a lot of Hitchcock visible too. Hitchcock is a rather unavoidable influence, really, for In Darkness doesn’t just wallow in the creation of atmosphere but is also equally adept at classicist suspense scenes, even sharing Hitchcock’s ability to turn moments that should be absolutely silly (the scene where Sofia attempts to hide a poison vial so that Radic doesn’t see it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever when you think about it, for example) into little nail biters. Some blind main character standard thriller scenes also make an appearance, but in Byrne’s hands, these turn out to be just as thrilling as they were the first time, many decades ago. There are also some wonderful action sequences, like the one where Marc saves Sofia from a bit of torture and murder, the film keeping the focus on the matter of factness with which Marc uses violence, showing instead of telling that he must do this sort of thing every day.

Dormer’s (who was also involved in the script) performance is wonderful too, at first suggesting all kinds of things going on behind a very calm facade, then always finding just the right measure for cracks in the facade to appear. She also manages – something that must be particularly difficult because this is the point where many a good performance in a thriller of this sort falters – to convince the audience that the moments when Sofia breaks down completely (and the film provides her with some psychologically nasty reasons for breaking down) are logical consequences of her character, her past, and what is happening right now, and not just the moments when the plot needs her to break down. The film has good performances all around, anyway. Especially Richardson’s Alex is a wonderfully sarcastic and ambiguous presence. Why, even Ed Skrein is sort of okay in this one.

As a movie about vengeance, In Darkness is a surprisingly complicated film too, never trying to convince the audience Sofia’s plan is either right or wrong, only that it feels like an emotional necessity to her, yet also acknowledging that she might very well be lying to herself there too. She is after, all lying to everyone else all of the time, too.


Which brings us to the film’s final plot twist, a moment so self-sabotaging and plain stupid it is difficult to reconcile it with the slick, self-assured and intelligent rest of the film. For, you see, Sofia isn’t actually blind, but apparently so deeply into The Method she’s even pretending to be blind when she’s home alone with only the camera to see her, able to block all her natural reflexes connected to her eyesight completely. Why she’s a real life Natalie Dormer, and Matt Murdock’s got nothing on her! Apart from the stupidity, needlessness - there’s no reason for her not to be blind apart from the film just wanting another plot twist – and somewhat ableist (never thought I’d use that word, but here we are) vibe of the twist, it also retroactively dumbs down what came before. Suddenly, at least half of the suspense sequences I enjoyed so much make now no sense whatsoever. The film’s concentration on sound? Just a distraction instead of a meaningful expression of its protagonist’s world through style. Half of Sofia’s actions? Utterly preposterous now. It’s as destructive a final plot twist as I’ve ever suffered through as a viewer; perhaps even worse is that I can’t even imagine why anyone involved might have thought this to be a good idea.

Some thoughts about Deadpool (2016)

By now, even the geniuses over at Fox have realized the old comics wisdom that, to paraphrase some wise old writers (Archie Goodwin it was, I think), when making a superhero movie, you can make any kind of film around the fights and the superpowers as long as you have the fights and the superpowers. Well, at least some parts of Fox seem to have realized, the rest thought Fantastic Four was a good idea.

So now, we get an oh-so-hip, oh-so-mature cynical comedy around the fights, a film that mostly seems to have come about by its makers misunderstanding the heart in Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant-Man as ironic posturing; which is useful, since posturing is the best Deadpool can do. There’s something unpleasantly puerile about a film whose only idea of subversion is to throw in lots of blood, decidedly less sex (because that’s much worse than the red stuff, obviously), many a joke I would have found funny when I was in puberty, and whose general approach to the specific dreams at the core of the superhero genre is a vague, pointless and joyless cynicism. Basically, the film’s a fifteen year old boy, and teenagers suck.

An extra degree of the tiresome is added by the never-ending fourth-wall-breaking jokes, which add a feeling of undeserved smugness to Deadpool’s other failings by giving the impression of a film that’s more interested in congratulating itself for how funny it is instead of actually being funny.


To add insult to injury, the super-powered action isn’t much cop either with all the ironic, fourth-wall-breaking posturing breaking up any possible flow, an overemphasis on slow-motion and stops that reminds me of one of those 90s US action movies that were so desperate to look like a John Woo movie but never did, and generally unimaginative set-ups for the action that fit how boring Ed Skrein’s Big Bad is.

In short: The Transporter Refueled (2015)

For the standards of Luc Besson’s Europa Corp. this attempt to get back to one of the company’s defining franchises without its defining star is a bit of a middling film, providing the expected amount of car chases, some martial arts set pieces that somewhat suffer from new lead Ed Skrein not being a seasoned (or good) screen fighter and clearly not a dancer either - which usually is the next best thing for fake martial arts in movies - and a bunch of stuff and nonsense.

Said nonsense is just general action movie silliness this time around and not Europa Corp. trademark brain-breakingly offensive stupidity, which should not be a complaint coming from a guy who has so often complained about the EC brand of stupidity in the past, but actually very much feels like one right now. Either it’s Stockholm Syndrome, or I’ve just gotten used to Besson’s very particular view of the world and the natural laws that govern it, but I’m missing the deeply stupid bits here, perhaps because most of Refueled’s silliness feels so pro forma and bland.

The word bland leads us directly to Ed Skrein, a man who I’ve seen act, so I’m pretty sure he can, but who doesn’t bother here. Instead he just shows up, mumbles through his dialogue in the most toneless voice imaginable, stiffly goes through the action sequences even though director Camille Delamarre – not being the terror we know as Olivier Megaton – does his level best to film around his lead actor in an action movie not actually being much cop for action sequences. Now, I’m really not a fan of Jason Statham, but Skrein’s performance at least gives me a new appreciation for Statham’s screen presence and acting abilities. Sure, it’s a pretty one note shtick, but unlike Skrein here, Statham always hits his one note.

Given Ray Stevenson’s presence as Frank’s father, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one not terribly convinced by the film’s actual lead, so at least the film gives us the Europa Corp. mandatory aging English language actor having a bit of fun on camera. Stevenson’s cast in a bit of an atypical role here (he’s still a tough guy, but the charming and mildly cultured sort), and whenever he is on screen, proceedings become that important bit more lively. Why, even Skrein seems to wake up from his slumber a bit when Stevenson’s around to drag him out of his coma.

Thanks to Stevenson, as well as the fact that Europa Corp – whoever is actually directing any given movie there – can by now film solid action sequences in their collective sleep (and you could argue that’s how the action here came to be), The Transporter Refueled still works as an okay little Euro action movie. The genre – and even EC’s back catalogue – is just so full of more worthwhile films I’m not sure why you’d bother with this one unless you’re really, really bored.