A Dark Place is a 2019 drama about a young boy who goes missing in a sleepy backwoods town and the sanitation truck driver who embarks on an obsessive investigation.
Perhaps what’s most curious about director Simon Fellows‘ latest mystery film is how he clearly knows he’s got hold of lightning in a bottle with the lead of his film but not that the story he’s in does him any justice. In fact, there are two movies in one here, with a murder mystery on one stage and a character study on the other, the latter the better with a career-defining performance somewhat beached by an undercooked plot.
Donald Devlin (Andrew Scott) is a little off, probably high-functioning autistic, but it’s not made clear. He’s the town’s garbage collector, naturally disheveled but well-liked, the father of an 11-year-old girl named Wendy (Christa Beth Campbell), who adores him though her mother not so much, regretting the booze-fueled one-night stand she had with him years before. On his mind these days though is the death of a 6-year-old boy, supposedly drowned in the creek, labeled accidental but leaving Donald unbelieving. He begins conducting his own investigation, sure a crime has been committed and a coverup underway.
I can’t really stress enough how well Scott makes Donald work, the way he wears frustration on his face, this look as if everyone around him is left of center and he’s the only normal guy around. It’s like he’s grown exhausted trying to explain everything and worn out from wondering why nobody gets it. This is one of those characters that could very easily topple an actor and tip them into parody, yet Scott holds tightly on the reigns, never making Donnie’s condition be what defines him, only his actions. It’s worth critical praise.
Where the film gets hung up though is Donnie’s motivations, the story always better when he’s dealing with his sickly mother, his daughter Wendy and his misunderstanding of the failed relationship with her mother (Denise Gough) than the investigation. There is bittersweet tragedy and genuine emotional impact in these moments that are undermined by the slow progressing reveal of what happened to the boy. It’s not that this doesn’t have any weight, it’s that it plays out with a detached assembly of bits that are conscripted to Donnie’s participation rather than for the sake of the actual mystery.
Donald becomes so entangled in this mess, he commits to things that would surely get him in deeper water than the film suggests, he attacking people he suspects are trying to make him look guilty and then much, much worse. The voice of reason comes from his co-worker Donna (Bronagh Waugh), who has some affection for him, but can’t crack his singular vision of ‘where’ he lives in his head. Fellows works hard to make sure we are reminded of Donnie’s ordered state of mind, especially in his practiced habit of sorting pens (these asides a little too on the nose), yet when it all comes together, it feels unstable, even as Fellows puts together some stirring imagery that are steeped in potential.
A Dark Place is well-acted film with a highly-convincing lead at the center of a cryptic story that is frustratingly unfulfilling. It drags this performance through a circle of generic landmarks that rely on Scott to make it stick and while this is not a complete loss, is nonetheless hollow in making its start connect to its end.