Nocturne: Deadly Player

I saw and enjoyed Nocturne last night, the fourth of four horror movies by Blumhouse on Amazon Prime Video, which four themselves are the first installment in a larger series to continue in 2021.  Like the first three Blumhouse movies I saw and reviewed -- The Lie, Black Box, and Evil Eye -- Nocturne is a tightly drawn family drama.  But Nocturne has the additional depth of being situated in music.

The story is about two fraternal twins, Juliet and Vivien, who are high school piano virtuosos and in constant fraternal competition.  Well, Vivien's a virtuoso, and on her way to Juilliard.  Juliet has problems expressing her talent.  Fortunately (or, of course, maybe not),  Juliet discovers a notebook with strange scribblings and depictions.  Will these help her find her confidence and showcase her talent?

I'll say no more, except the sibling rivalry intensifies, affairs and almost affairs with boyfriends and teachers ensue, and the music is beautiful and haunting.  The acting is fine, too, especially Sydney Sweeney as Juliet, and it was good to see Dexter's Julie Benz as the twins' mother.  The ending was somewhat predictable, but it was effectively rendered, and I thought the real strength of Nocturne was not in the plot per se but in way the parts of this inevitable story were played out.  Applause for Zu Quirke who wrote and directed.

So I'm all set for the next Blumhouse quartet next year.   In a way, the more I see of these movies, the more they look like a 21st-century streaming Twilight Zone, with longer episodes.

 

Evil Eye: Reincarnation Across Continents

Do you believe in reincarnation?  Or, if not, are you open to accepting it as a premise for a taut, slow-burning family thriller that builds up to a clutched-by-the-throat ending?  If yes, you're in for a rewarding 90 minutes with Evil Eye.

This is the third Blumhouse production my wife and I have seen on Amazon Prime Video in about as many nights.  The Blumhouse "program" on Prime Video is presented in the promotional trailer as a quartet of "horror" stories.  But, The Lie was straight-up crime.  Black Box was science fiction -- nothing supernatural.  Both were excellent, but neither was horror.  I haven't yet seen Nocturne.  Evil Eye was also excellent -- and, at last, horror!   So, if that's your cup of strange tea, come and get it.

Here's the set-up:  Usha in India is worried that her daughter Pallavi, in the U.S., is 29 and not yet married.  That may soon be corrected, though, when she meets a cool, well-spoken, good-looking guy.  But Usha has increasing misgivings, which we eventually learn derive from her being attacked on a bridge when she was pregnant (with Pallavi) by a ten-years former boyfriend.  Usha survived the attack by pushing her former boyfriend off the bridge.   Has he come back in America, transcending space as well as time, in the body of Sandeep, Pallavi's suave boyfriend, to exact some kind of revenge all of these years later on Usha?

Ok, that's all I'll tell you about the story.   I will say that it's fleshed out by a family of appealing characters including Usha's husband, Krishnan, a man of science and therefore not a believer in reincarnation  (good job by Bernard White, whom you may have seen on Homeland), Pallavi (well-played by Sunita Mani) who of course doesn't at first believe in reincarnation, either, and Usha, played by Sarita Choudhury, every bit as impressive as when we first saw her on the screen with Denzel Washington in Mississippi Masala way back in 1991.

Written by Madhuri Shekar, directed by Elan Dassani and Rajeev Dassani, Evil Eye serves up a narrative that blends current Indian and American flavor with ancient belief, in a story that would have fit well in any issue of the late, lamented Weird Tales.

 

Black Box: With One Body You Can't Dance with Two Minds

Immortality via uploaded minds into computer systems has been a staple of science fiction for decades.  It's rarely done as well on the screen as it is Black Box, on Amazon Prime Video since October.

Nolan's having trouble recovering his memories after surviving a severe car accident, which apparently initially left him brain dead.   That's a start for this kind of narrative we've also seen many times before.  But Black Box becomes memorable in the almost delicate, compassionate subtlety with which Nolan struggles to regain his self, and the traumatic and heart-warming surprises that await him.

The more specific problem for Nolan is he's recovering not only his memories but even more of someone else's.  He goes to a specialist, Lillian, who's very understanding, and puts him through various procedures such as hypnosis and connections to arcane devices.   We learn, the hard way -- or Nolan learns, the hard way --

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

that Lillian has actually downloaded another mind into his body, the mind of her son, Thomas, who died some months ago.  Lillian uploaded his mind before he died, and she hopes to bring her son back to life, or his mind back to life, in Nolan's brain and body.

I've already given away too much of the story, in case you ignored the spoiler warning, so I won't say anything more, specifically.   But I like the way Nolan, who retains some of his memories along with Thomas's, tries to work things out, as does Thomas in Nolan's body, too.   There's an old Yiddish saying, with one tuchus you can't dance at two weddings.   Black Box is in effect a story of with one body you can't do the dance of life with two minds.

Very well acted by Mamoudou Athie as Nolan, Amanda Christine as his precocious daughter Ava, and it was good to see Phylicia Rashad as Lillian.  Fine story by Stephen Herman and directing by Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour.  Highly recommended!

See also Review of The Silicon Man by Charles Platt (1991)  

  

The Lie: Acting about Acting

My wife and I caught The Lie last night on Amazon Prime Video.  A scalding little movie from Blumhouse, and from the brain behind The Killing (Veena Sud), with one of its big stars ( Mireille Enos).

[spoilers follow]

First, let me say that I guessed the big shocking reveal at the end -- foresaw this about halfway through the movie.  The reason was two-fold: 1.  We didn't see Britney actually being pushed to her death.  2. Britney's body wasn't recovered.  And although the current was swift, the water didn't look particularly deep.

But this didn't spoil in the least my enjoyment of the movie, which grabs you by your collar as soon as Jay hears his daughter Kayla cry out, and keeps you there for the next ninety minutes.  Further, the acting is really impressive, with a typical brilliant performance by Enos across a simmering and wild range of emotions.

Joey King as Kayla was also noteworthy.  Her acting was, in effect, a double meta-performance.  She has to act to her parents as if she did shove Britney to her death.  And she has to pretend just the opposite to the police: that nothing untoward happened.  And then the big reveal that she and Britney were putting this whole thing on: we need to believe, after that, that Kayla was acting about everything she said before.

I believed it, and so did my wife.   If you've read this far, through the warned spoilers, you've already seen The Lie.  If somehow you haven't, it's well worth seeing.