There
are a fair number of pianists to be found in classic giallos. Most likely, it
is because of the genre’s obsession with hands—often donning patent leather
gloves and wrapped around a woman’s throat. For a while, it seems like this
film will paying homage to the J&B whiskey-guzzling Italian tradition. It
even opens with the blind pianist scoring a neo-retro-giallo. Alas, the
screenplay then gets “topical,” throttling the good vibes of Anthony Byrne’s In Darkness (trailer here), co-written and
co-produced with his fiancé and star, Natalie Dormer, which opens this Friday
in New York.
Sofia
is light-sensitive, but legally blind. Nevertheless, she gets around London
just fine on her own. She knows her upstairs neighbor Veronique by the smell of
her perfume. At least, she did until the disturbed young woman took a header
out the window. However, the scuffle she overheard suggests homicide rather
than suicide. It turns out, the hot mess neighbor had a notorious father—alleged
Bosnian Serb war criminal Zoran Radic.
The
bad news is the killer got a good look at her. Fortunately, he also knows she
is blind. In fact, Marc, the brooding murderer will keep an eye out for Sofia
as she gets swept up in the aftermath. It turns out Veronique had an incriminating
flash-drive, loaded with dirt on Daddy Dearest. However, before the film
settles into a one-set, three-act thriller in the tradition of Wait Until Dark, we start to learn Sofia
also has her own Balkan connections.
The
first half-hour or so of In Darkness is
not bad, because it largely employs old school stage-thriller techniques,
including the home invading murderer slowly skulking around the oblivious
Sofia. Frustratingly, the more it reveals of its exploitative back story, the less
effective it becomes. To make matters worse, Byrne and Dormer frequently lay
some pretty patchy groundwork to establish their future revelations.
Still,
Dormer has some nifty noir thriller chemistry with her Game of Thrones co-star Ed Skrein, as the conflicted killer. Ben Wheatley-regular
Neil Maskell nicely plays against type as the shlubby but doggedly honest DI
Oscar Mills. However, the highlight of the film is Joely Richardson’s
flamboyant scenery chewing as Alex, Marc’s sharp-tongued and sharp-clawed
sister and security consultant boss. Plus, with the appearance of James Cosmos,
dependably weathered, as Sofia old comrade, In
Darkness scores the GoT hattrick.
In
the case of In Darkness, less probably
would have been much more. Frankly, its political intrigue does not make much
sense and bears little relation to reality. The notion the British government
is sheltering Radic from the Russians is particularly dubious, considering how
war-time Serbia and Srpska have tilted towards Putin. Frankly, the West fiddled
while Sarajevo burned, but we have pretty diligent about apprehending and extraditing
Bosnian Serb war criminals, because closing the barn door after the fact is
what we do best.
