FilmSnobReviews

Title: Dark Places
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Starring: Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Chloe Grace Moretz 
Runtime: 1 hr 54 mins
What It Is: When her mother and two sisters are murdered by her older brother Libby Day (Theron) has lived a tortured life. One tortured and held up by that night, by her brother Ben (Corey Stoll) and his horrific actions. When a young man obsessed with finding the truth (played by Hoult), and some justice for Ben enters her life he turns it upside down, by making her look into her past. A past that Libby never thought she’d have to look at again. As the layers unravel to this story she soon begins to realize that perhaps it was both she and Ben that were imprisoned. He in a physical cell, and she in a mental box of  anguish and repression. One that neither can ever truly escape.

What We Think: This narrative is sloppily put together, and unsurprising in every way. By the end of the film you realize you knew the ending all along and the journey there was too exhausting and maligned to have been worth it. Charlize Theron is all but wasted as are most of the talented cast here. Director/Screenwriter Paquet-Brenner seems to have taken Gillian Flynn’s novel and makes it this boring convoluted mess. Every character is a slimy jerk, and that makes for a truly unlikable film. Mix that up with a dash of sloppy direction and you get a bonafide turd.

Our Grade: D+, Gone Girl this is not. In fact it is the opposite almost completely. A waste of both the audiences time, and the studios money. There was only one theater playing this damn movie, its the biggest one in town and the theater was empty. I can’t recommend this one, in addition I am going to suggest you skip it all together.