Dark Places

Dark Places

Rating: 1.5/5

Premise:

Libby day was 8 years old when almost her entire family got murdered. Only she and her brother Ben survived. Thanks to Libby’s testimony, Ben went to jail for the murder.
28 years later, Libby gets contacted by a member of the Kill Club, an association dedicated to finding out the true culprit behind crimes they feel were not handled well by the police. This will bring up all sorts of memories for Libby and the revelations will surprise her.

Review:

I have not read any books by Gillian Flynn. I watched Gone Girl and now Dark Places.
Unlike the previous movie, I cannot say I enjoyed this one. I have been trying to wrap my finger around why exactly I did not like it and I just cannot seem to find a straight answer.

It’s not that I did not like Libby. From my experience with Gone Girl, I can tell one of Flynn’s strengths is getting the reader wrapped up in a story where he or she does not even like the main character.
Her nonchalance towards the entire situation did tire me a bit, but I was ok with it for the most part because I found it interesting how a person could devolve like that. Because of what happen to 8-year-old Libby, she did not become this heroine most books and movies show us; she is a kleptomaniac, a hoarder and a mooch. I did not have to like such a character, but I could have been interested by her and wanted to know what came next. Instead, I did not feel engaged by her or the story at all.

Most of the time, I found the movie slow, gloomy and pointless, where stuff just happened instead of building up to it. There were no particularly stand-out performances. The actors were good, but not brilliant. Probably not their fault, but still. I never cared for any of the characters or what happened to them. I was bored during large sections of it and kept looking at my watch, wondering how long till it was over.

Also, early on I had already guessed in part what had happened on that dreary night, and the rest of the revelations did not surprise me that much because at that point I no longer cared.
As often happens with movie adaptations of books, I could tell a lot of important scenes were cut out because there was no set-up, we were just fed things and expected to take it even though they made no sense, whereas they could have had major impact if precessed by a proper build-up.
When the major revelation came, it was completely anti-climatic and nowhere near the end of the movie. So I guess I felt like there wasn’t a proper balance. Some scenes seemed utterly unnecessary, while others needed to be better set up.

It was just a bland film. I felt it should not have been bland at all. There was room for so much more.
This is an instance where I am absolutely certain the book has got to be miles better than the movie.