Out of Blue

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Rey W Apr 15, 2019 This was an excellent film noir. As usual most critics mistake perfectly realistic psychological subtlety and depth for absurd confusion. This film could certainly have been written by Ross Macdonald as it has languid pacing and double-barrelled plotlines, one external and one internal, gradually receding into one another. It's a beautiful and revealing dance and anyone who complains it 'didn't make sense' or that they couldn't figure out 'whodunnit' is either being wilfully blind or just dense. Above all this film features a stunning performance by the always great but too rarely seen Patricia Clarkson, who offers a sensational portrayal of a hardboiled detective burdened with a secret so dark she doesn't even know it herself. Her gradual unravelling of the mystery of her self as she pursues a serial killer is enacted with beauty, melancholy and fear in equal measure. The story is classic noir, but also a sort of intimate Apocalpyse Now/Heart of Darkness, as the closer she gets to solving the crime the deeper she approaches her own heart of darkness. It's far from a unique plot, but rarely is it explored and enacted with so much restraint and taut realism. Even Clarkson's temporary psychic glitches feel as real as a resurfacing memory, rather than strange as a cardboard hollywood dream. All in all, if you like your noir with less macho posturing and more steely women, saying little but palpably feeling and seeing everything, then Out of Blue is for you. See more

Hermione S Apr 4, 2019 I really want to like this stylised but fragmented whodunit based on a Martin Amis novel in which the always watchable Patricia Clarkson is cast as the film noir detective that's normally a white man. Investigating the death of an astrophysicist who also happens to be daughter of a famous local politician (played by James Caan), she finds echoes of a series of unsolved murders back in the 60s. While director Carol Morley brings a refreshingly feminine sensitivity to the material, her second hand David Lynchian touch can be frustrating as the audience is confused and bombarded with symbolism and metaphors that go nowhere and red herrings and misdirections (one of which seems to be a U-turn, even), which only goes to prove this is more of a case of style over substance. Despite a gamed cast that also includes an underused Toby Jones and a cuckoo Jacki Weaver as Caan's character's wife, and a half decent (though not terribly original or surprising) airport thriller plot, the film veers closer to an unintentional (and unfunny) parody and fails to deliver anything alternative or coherent enough to justify its peculiar style of storytelling. In fact, in its attempt to operate on many levels at the same time, the dreamy and abstract presentation ends up impeding, if not overcomplicating, the twisty crime thriller and we are left, much like why its title seems to be missing a 'the', with a pretentious and head-scratching mess. See more

Rey P Apr 3, 2019 The worst film I have ever seen.

Hermione W Mar 31, 2019 I can't say I entirely disliked this film, but then again I can't say I understood it beyond anything more than surface level. One that may benefit from a repeat viewing. See more

Mar 27, 2019 This movie is just a hot mess.... it leaves you with more questions than answers and when it ends you will say "what"? If you are deeply into science ..you may like it a little more ï¿ 1/2 Just way too much weirdness ..loose ends ...and parts that I have no clue why they were in the movie. See more

Hagrid M Mar 27, 2019 Great actors in what should have been a great story. But the director and editors lost the thread and ended up with an unfollowable movie that seemed way longer than it actually is. See more

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Out of Blue

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