With the success of Gone Girl, film producers have been scrambling to adapt other works from novelist Gillian Flynn.
However this adaptation of Dark Places by French Director Gilles Paquet-Brenner lacks the style, tension and panache of Dave Fincher's superior adaptation of Gone Girl.
Libby Day (Charlize Theron) as a 7 year old survived an attack on her family home which left her mother and two sisters dead. Her brother who was dabbling in drugs and Satanism was found guilty of the crimes.
Thirty decades later with cash running out Libby is persuaded by the prospect of money by amateur crime investigator (Nicholas Hoult) part of the Kill Club (who investigate true life crimes) to confront the past and that her brother may not had committed the crimes.
With the use of flashbacks we see events leading up to the crime and introduced to alternative suspects such as Libby's no good father or her brother's pregnant girlfriend.
The film tries to go for a grungy dirty look but even the 1980s flashbacks look insipid. The devil worship material is almost laughable and there is little that is noirish about this film. Theron has glammed down for the role and hides her million dollar haircut by wearing a cap but the film is just dull and downbeat.
Maybe the script could had taken some inspiration from Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and we could see a film of lives torn apart but what we get is just unstimulating.
However this adaptation of Dark Places by French Director Gilles Paquet-Brenner lacks the style, tension and panache of Dave Fincher's superior adaptation of Gone Girl.
Libby Day (Charlize Theron) as a 7 year old survived an attack on her family home which left her mother and two sisters dead. Her brother who was dabbling in drugs and Satanism was found guilty of the crimes.
Thirty decades later with cash running out Libby is persuaded by the prospect of money by amateur crime investigator (Nicholas Hoult) part of the Kill Club (who investigate true life crimes) to confront the past and that her brother may not had committed the crimes.
With the use of flashbacks we see events leading up to the crime and introduced to alternative suspects such as Libby's no good father or her brother's pregnant girlfriend.
The film tries to go for a grungy dirty look but even the 1980s flashbacks look insipid. The devil worship material is almost laughable and there is little that is noirish about this film. Theron has glammed down for the role and hides her million dollar haircut by wearing a cap but the film is just dull and downbeat.
Maybe the script could had taken some inspiration from Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and we could see a film of lives torn apart but what we get is just unstimulating.