“The Pale Blue Eye” marks the latest collaboration between Christian Bale and Scott Cooper. The two have previously worked together on “Out of the Furnace,” which was met with massive critical praise for both talents, while their previous collaboration, “Hostiles,” wasn’t as well-received.
The two reunite in this adaptation of Louis Bayard‘s novel of the same name, as Bale plays Detective Augustus Landor, investigating a series of murders with Edgar Allan Poe, played by Harry Melling. Alongside Melling and Bale, the movie will star Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, Timothy Spall, Robert Duvall, and Fred Hechinger.
Cooper had compared directing Bale to driving a Maserati, in a 2013 interview with Entertainment Weekly, stating that “All you have to do is feather the accelerator — a note or an adjustment — and he’s off!” He would be one of the better judges of Bale’s talent, as he has now worked with him three times, and he seems to bring some of his career-best performances with Cooper, a director who, even with an imperfect filmography, always brings out something interesting. It’s an interesting comparison, but the actor is truly one of the best working today, and it’s no surprise Cooper would think the same thing.
Its plot synopsis reads, “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 (Christian Bale), 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 (Harry Melling).”
Produced by Cooper, Bale, John Lesher, and Tyler Thompson, “The Pale Blue Eye” will release in select theatres on December 23 before it makes its way to Netflix on January 6.