By Simon Thompson
Writer/director Teresa Sutherland’s Lovely, Dark, and Deep suffers from one of the worst cases of Shyamalanitis that I have seen in a long time.
It’s a beautiful movie to look, at as Sutherland makes the most of the rural Portuguese location that double ups for the movie’s fictional American national park, but sadly it doesn’t quite stick the landing in the way that you might have hoped.
The plot tells the story of Lennon ( Georgina Campbell), a park ranger who has secured a huge promotion to Arvores National Park. The gig itself is a double edged sword however, as the park itself has been the sight of multiple missing person incidents, involving both members of the public and Lennon’s predecessor. As the narrative unwinds it becomes clearer and clearer that the park is home to a repressed traumatic childhood memory of Lennon’s which is connected to the various missing persons cases that she is trying to solve.
The problems with Lovely, Dark, And Deep can largely be found in its structure. The first third of the movie is genuinely fantastic: Sutherland establishes a dreamlike and sinister atmosphere from the outset, the cinematography by Rui Pocas is jaw-droppingly beautiful, and Georgina Campbell is well-cast in the role of Lennon, striking a balance between both a sense of competence and vulnerability- a feat which is far easier said than done.
Once you get past the first third act, however, the second half holds up about as well one of Gob Bluth’s magic tricks. As Lennon travels further into the forest and we finally find out the secret behind her childhood trauma, the actual monsters themselves are about as easy to understand as the small print on a Gundam model kit instruction manual, dashing away all of the superb build-up that Sutherland went to the trouble of establishing in the first half.
To conclude, there is a good movie somewhere in Lovely, Dark, and Deep but it’s buried under a myriad of pacing issues and a second and third act which don’t go anywhere. Usually when I criticise a movie more often than not it’s for being too long, but here I’m going to do the exact opposite and say that Lovely, Dark, and Deep could have benefitted from an extra forty minutes or so to properly flesh out its second half.
Blue Finch Film Releasing presents Lovely, Dark, and Deep on digital platforms 25 March.
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