Dark Places (4 Stars)

Do you pay attention to the success rate that I post at the bottom of my reviews? It's the relative success of a film, proportionally to its budget. I don't always have the details, but when I do I post the value. Basically, any film with a positive success rate (especially if it's larger than +1) is a success, while any film with a negative success rate is a flop. "Dark Places" has a success rate of - 5.7, which means it bombed at the box office, despite its collection of A List stars. That's unfortunate. It's a good film that deserved to be successful.

When Libby Day was eight years old her mother and her two sisters were murdered. She was the only witness, and in court she testified that her brother Ben, aged 16, was the killer. That's a trauma that would ruin anyone's life, and it's certainly ruined her life. For 28 years she lived off her mother's life insurance, but now the money is gone, and she faces the possibility of having to work for the first time in her life. That is, if anyone will hire a 36-year-old who's never worked. Her chances look bad.

She receives a letter from a man called Lyle who promises her $500 for attending a meeting. That sounds too good to be true. She meets him at night in a launderette. It seems weird, but he says it's the best place, because he owns the launderette. He belongs to a group called the Kill Club. Its members are people who are fascinated by unsolved murder cases, so they want to meet her. Why Libby? The murder of her family was solved, wasn't it? Lyle says that the members of the club don't believe Ben was the murderer. They think that Libby's testimony was too confused and didn't match the evidence.

Libby thinks Lyle and his Kill Club are a bunch of cranks, but she needs the money, so she helps with Lyle's investigations. It's more accurate to say that she leads the investigations herself. She visits Ben in prison for the first time in 28 years, and he's not at all bitter, even though he claims he's innocent. Over the next few days Libby tracks down childhood friends and acquaintances, and she uncovers things that she's either forgotten or never knew. There were conspiracies involving drugs, Satanism, child abuse, and worst of all: heavy metal music!

Watching the film today for the first time, it fascinated me. How could a film like this possibly have flopped at the box office? There are first class performances by Charlize Theron, Christina Hendricks and Nicholas Hoult. Chloe Grace Moretz is a good actress as well, but her character, Ben's girlfriend, is constantly smoking. That puts me off. Despite that small negative aspect, I can strongly recommend the film to my readers.

Success Rate:  - 5.7

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