Review of In a Dark Place (2006) by Tasha H — 22 Nov 2007

It doesn't surprise me that most of the critics go on and on about Ms. Sobieski's performance and say nothing about the rest of the film. It's because they have no idea what happened. No one knows or understands what happened.

Don't get me wrong. Sobieski's a great actress, but the script and camera shots were so hammy in some place and too quick to move away in other shots. Critical information is completely overlooked and makes the audience flounder around, grasping for some clue.

The biggest problem, of course, is the script itself. We know nothing about the nanny's background except that she was raped when she was little. That's all we know. It's very hard to try to like a character when you can relate to a boiled yam better. We have no clue what the nanny means when she screams, "What have I done?!" because we don't have a clue, and the end was just as odd and ambiguous as the rest of the film, only leaving a feeling of "Wait, so...what?" in the back of the throat.

Thankfully, the director clues us into why the movie went from having promise to falling on it's face. If you have the DVD, go to the behind the scenes Special Feature and watch. The film is supposed to be based on the book "Turn of the Screw", but the director admits he hasn't read the book, watched any of the hundreds of movies based on it, watched any of the television specials, or talked to the fans of the above. Nor does he care.

The saddest part of this tale is that the movie had the budget, location, actors, and plot to be a fantastic movie. Too bad it seems that even the director doesn't know what's going on.