In anticipation of release this Friday, a new clip from The Pale Blue Eye offers another glimpse at the Netflix gothic thriller. Released courtesy of IGN, this latest footage introduces us to Academy Award winner Christian Bale as the jaded detective Augustus Landor, who is partnered with a young Edgar Allen Poe played by Harry Potter star Harry Melling. Together, this mismatched pair must solve a series of brutal murders. Check out the new clip from The Pale Blue Eye below.
Written and directed by Scott Cooper, who is best known for the likes of Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace, Black Mass, and Hostiles, and adapted from Louis Bayard's 2006 novel of the same name, The Pale Blue Eye will take audiences to West Point in the year 1830 as it follows veteran detective Augustus Landor. Tasked with investigating a series of murders at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, Landor finds himself stymied by the cadets’ code of silence. Thus, he enlists one of their own to help unravel the case — a young man the world would come to know as Edgar Allan Poe.
The Pale Blue Eye has amassed a stellar cast alongside leads Christian Bale and Harry Melling. It features Gillian Anderson (The Crown), Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist), Toby Jones (The Wonder), Harry Lawtey (Industry), Simon McBurney (Carnival Row), Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner), Hadley Robinson (Moxie), Joey Brooks (Molly’s Game), Brennan Cook (Encounter), Gideon Glick (Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus), Matt Helm (Tragedy of Macbeth), Steven Maier (The Plot Against America), Charlie Tahan (Ozark) and Robert Duvall (The Judge, Widows).
The Pale Blue Eye Lands on Netflix This Friday
The Pale Blue Eye will be the third time that Oscar winner and celebrated actor Christian Bale has teamed-up with filmmaker Scott Cooper, with the director behind the upcoming adaptation (an adaptation he has been working towards for more than a decade) revealing that he always had Bale in mind for the role of the world-weary detective Augustus Landor.
"This is the third film that I have written expressly for Christian,” Cooper explained. “He tends to embody my characters in ways that frankly other actors couldn't... Harry Melling well beyond my imagination, bringing the Poe that I envisioned to life. I've just been so fortunate in this to be able to cast actors that I've long admired."
Several critics have already reacted to The Pale Blue Eye, with Glenn Kenny of RogerEbert.com saying, “The movie honors the real-life figure who would, among other things, become the arguable creator of the American detective story, while in its own right turning a shudder-inducing light on the darker recesses of the human heart.” other responses have been more mixed, with THR’s David Rooney concluding that The Pale Blue Eye is “one of those handsomely mounted period pieces that should get under your skin; instead, it slumps from scene to scene with little momentum or tension, remaining just this side of inert.”
The Pale Blue Eye was released in select cinemas on December 23, 2022, and is scheduled to land on Netflix later this week on January 6, 2023.