Christian Bale and director Scott Cooper have a history together. They first teamed up on 2013’s “Out Of The Furnace,” then reunited on 2017’s “Hostiles.” Now they collaborate again on “The Pale Blue Eye,” Cooper’s follow-up to last year’s “Antlers,” which hits Netflix next January. And the pair’s latest film together may be their most intriguing, as it’s a gothic mystery with a highly esteemed literary figure at its center: Henry Melling‘s Edgar Allan Poe.
Based on Louis Bayard‘s 2006 novel of the same name, “The Pale Blue Eye” takes place in 1830, as Bale’s detective comes out of retirement to solve a double murder at nearby West Point military academy. There he meets Melling’s Poe, a cadet at West Point, whose interest in the occult and the uncanny helps the investigation in unlikely ways.
Here’s the film’s official synopsis, courtesy of Netflix:
West Point, 1830. In the early hours of a gray winter morning, a cadet is found dead. But after the body arrives at the morgue, tragedy becomes savagery when it’s discovered that the young man’s heart has been skillfully removed. Fearing irreparable damage to the fledgling military academy, its leaders turn to a local detective, Augustus Landor, to solve the murder. Stymied by the cadets’ code of silence, Landor enlists the help of one of their own to pursue the case, an eccentric cadet with a disdain for the rigors of the military and a penchant for poetry—a young man named Edgar Allan Poe.
“The Pale Blue Eye” also stars Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, and Harry Lawtey. Simon McBurney, Hadley Robinson, Timothy Spall, and Joey Brooks round out the main cast. The film also boasts the legendary Robert Duvall in a small role.
Cooper adapts Bayard’s novel on top of directing and producing. Masanobu Takayanagi is the film’s cinematographer, while Howard Shore composes the film’s score.
So, who’s the culprit of the double murder at the center of “The Pale Blue Eye,” and how much will the crime influence Edgar Allan Poe’s later literary career? Find out on January 6, 2023, when the film hits Netflix. “The Pale Blue Eye” also gets a limited theatrical release on December 23. Watch a trailer for the film below.
