In Darkness is a 2018 thriller about a blind musician who hears a murder committed in the apartment upstairs from hers that sends her down a dark path into London’s gritty criminal underworld.
Thrillers love the blind, the lack of sight giving the genre a whole extra layer of suspense that a host of films have taken advantage of, some very good and some, well, not so much. With Anthony Byrne‘s latest In Darkness, it’s kind of a mix of both, with plenty of great moments of suspense that are somewhat deflated by an overall loss of momentum as it progresses, the film a grab bag of conventions that are well set up but lose their edge as it plays out to its end.
Sofia (Natalie Dormer) is a blind, professional pianist doing well for herself, living in a nice apartment building. Living right above her is Veronique (Emily Ratajkowski), the daughter of an Eastern European dictator named Radic (Jan Bijvoet) who is residing in the United States under political asylum. One night, Veronique is murdered, falling to her death and the case lands on Detective Mills (Neil Maskell), who comes to suspect something isn’t right about Sofia’s story, she claiming she heard nothing of the crime. However, she draws further interest from a man named Marc (Ed Skrein), hired to take care of Veronica after she came into possession of a flash drive with some rather sticky information concerning her father and his older sister, Alex (Joely Richardson). Marc is convinced Sofia now has the drive and as she attempts to handle the police, the two become unexpectedly bound in intrique.
Byrne is obviously a fan of the classics and doesn’t shy away from giving nods to some of the landmark films in the genre, In Darkness wonderfully stylish, surely pleasing fans of the old standbys. Byrne greatly helps the audience connect with Sofia’s blindness as well, something that not many films handle so smartly, letting sound be the markers for how she gets around in her world, which really puts the viewer in a unique spot. It’s these triggers that are convincingly made in suggesting she might actually be a reliable witness to Veronica’s fate, the two having only met briefly (but with great consequence).
This all works very well in setup, with a terrific start that establishes much about these characters and what motivates them, though Byrne eventually stalls in capitalizing on much of the story’s greater opportunities for suspense by lingering on Sofia’s mental gymnastics in considering what is in front of her. These lethargic moments are meant to use stillness and darkness as tools of tensions but they don’t twist the screws quiet so tightly as they should, even if many moments have the flavor of similar styles from older films.
Byrne co-wrote the script with Dormer, who does lots of good work, being on screen for most of the film, always convincing even if the story isn’t entirely on pace with her efforts. She’s good fun to watch, absolutely elevating this from what might have been a lesser experience. While In Darkness has all the right parts, it simply doesn’t have the fun of exploration that those it tries to emulate have, leaving this with less bite than expected.