In Darkness, A Review

Fear blinds the truth.

After watching Picnic at Hanging Rock early last week I found myself in a bit of a Natalie Dormer mood and wanted to watch something with her in again. I remember watching a trailer for this film a while ago and thinking it seemed like the sort of thing I love watching- a sort of mash up between In the Dark, The Girl on the Train and The Woman in the Window.

In Darkness follows blind musician Sofia (Dormer) who lives alone in an apartment complex. One night she hears voices and movement from the apartment above and then hears her neighbour Veronique (Emily Ratajkowski) fall from above and we see her lying dead on the ground outside. Sofia is questioned by Detective Mills (Neil Maskell) but is unable to be of much help and the death is later ruled a suicide.

However it is later revealed that Veronique was actually the daughter of Serbian businessman man and suspected war criminal Zoran Radic (Jan Bijvoet) and her death may have been anything but accidental. Brother and sister duo Marc (Ed Skrein) and Alexandra (Joely Richardson) are revealed to be working against Radic and the death of Veronique and Sofia’s own involvement is so much more complicated than initially thought.

In Darkness was nothing like I expected and it was less murder mystery and more of a Revenge esque story– which I loved. Veronique’s death was nothing compared to what was really going on and it’s soon revealed that Sofia living below her is anything but coincidence. I loved how this film completely defied my expectations and truly kept me hooked to the very end. An end that I should add was mind blowing and brilliant all at once.

Initially I was wary that In Darkness would be all to similar to TV show In the Dark (I mean they even have similar titles), where a blind person solves a murder but it was anything but. In fact Veronique’s death ended up having little to do with the film overall and acted more to set up events rather than being a massive plot point. I’d say In Darkness is more action than mystery but I enjoyed the change in genre from what I normally watch.

Dormer gave an amazing performance in this and I really have to commend her for playing such complex and interesting characters. If Dormer is in a film or TV show she is almost guranteed to have one of the best roles and she always manages to keep it interesting. I’d also like to single out Joely Richardson’s role as the devious Alex, I confess that most other roles I’ve seen Richardson in always manage to be very unlikeable or annoying characters but I really liked her in this- she may have been one of the bad guys but she managed to pull it off with style.

In Darkness wasn’t quite what I expected but it ended up being better than I ever thought. A mystery mixed in with some good old revenge and a mind blowing emding this really was a great watch and I highly recommend.