BBC Films, Harold Greenberg Fund, The, MACT Productions
Paddy Considine, Julia Stiles, Karl Pruner, Phillip MacKenzie, Gord Rand, James Gilbert, R.D. Reid, Caroline Dhavernas, Alex Karzis, Charlotte Sullivan
Robert Forrester (Paddy Considine) is in the middle of a divorce, suffers from depression, and is sick of living in the city. Lucky to be able to find a job (He’s an aerospace engineer) in a small town, he moves out of the rat race. But he views a lovely mysterious lady, Jenny Thierolf (Julia Stiles) through her kitchen window. Fascinated, he stops by often to peek through the window to watch her doing her everyday chores. One night, he is caught, but she is surprisingly cordial and forgiving and acts as though she is expecting him. But as he gets caught in the web, things grow more mysterious and someone is out to get him and putting him in deeper and deeper trouble at each turn.
The Cry of the Owl is a suspenseful murder mystery that keeps him falling deeper and deeper into a trap. But we don’t know who is really behind this, or if it’s all a setup. As the bodies pile up, it twists and turns and keeps us more and more surprised. It is a long and winding road that leads us to the final scene. I was pleasantly surprised at this movie. I was not familiar with Paddy Considine, and I thought he did a really good job. Julia Stiles is very pretty and makes a suitable co-crazy person in this film, but I am not sure she was able to pull it off. She is a bit too pouty and borderline whiney in this role for my taste. Some of the other characters seem miscast too, which leads a lot of reviewers to blast the film. Robert’s soon to be ex-wife is not the evil bitch from hell that she could be, but she does seem selfish and shallow, and I’m not sure if she didn’t actually play it right after all. Even Jenny’s ex is not the villain that he could have been, but again, this may not be so much bad acting, as a way to play the part in a way to keep us guessing.
Still it was a good mystery, and it reminded me a bit of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Frenzy” where we know who the killer is, but everything points the the person’s guilt that we know is innocent. Still unlike Frenzy where is was a straight line from the moment of the crime to the climax where every step makes the poor guy look absolutely guilty, in this film, there are a lot of twists an turns. I bet this was a very good novel, and the movie is quite decent. Available on Netflix Watch Instantly, this is a nice choice when you’re in the mood for a mystery when there’s nothing new in the queue. I enjoyed it.
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