Dark Places
A24 | Release Date: August 7, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
39
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
8
Negative:
7
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
Screen DailyLisa NesselsonApr 7, 2015
Slouching Theron is absolutely convincing as a self-loathing haunted soul with zero ambition. As the town’s “rich slut,” Chloe Grace Moretz gives yet another pitch-perfect performance. Both actresses elevate the material, making a somewhat far-fetched story both believable and enjoyable. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianMarc MohanAug 7, 2015
Theron makes Libby a bristling, emotionally crippled live wire, her anger, guilt, and distrust bubbling to the surface with the slightest provocation. She's neither quite as fascinating nor nearly as despicable a character as "Gone Girl"'s Amazing Amy, but director Gilles Paquet-Brenner is no David Fincher. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeAug 6, 2015
Aside from the A-list cast, there isn’t much to differentiate Dark Places from an especially grim TV movie. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesMiriam Di Nunzio Aug 6, 2015
Dark Places does its best to stir a multitude of emotions within us, but in doing so, the film feels contrived and hurried. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerApr 7, 2015
This plot-heavy suspense flick loses some of the book’s originality in translation while failing to channel its sense of Midwestern malaise. But it keeps the guessing game going long enough to compensate for some otherwise shallow characterizations, while Theron offers up an earnest and downbeat turn that says a lot with little dialogue Read full review
60
VarietyPeter DebrugeApr 7, 2015
As heroines go, it’s refreshing to get one as complex as this: When psychologically scarred female characters do turn up in thrillers, they’re usually little more than shivering victims who set a group of male cops in motion, but here, Libby does her own detective work, while Hendricks lends star power to the flashback scenes. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyAug 4, 2015
It’s never pushed far enough. Instead, Dark Places just becomes an overstuffed, low-simmer potboiler with too many improbable detours and overly convenient twists. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriAug 8, 2015
As a result, the mystery itself eventually becomes tiresome and shrug-worthy, even as the film breathlessly racks up the revelations. In the end, this twisty thriller just winds up twisting in the wind. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleDavid LewisAug 6, 2015
Dark Places isn’t a disaster of a film. Instead, it’s the definition of average, and we wish it could have taken us to some more interesting places. Read full review
50
The PlaylistJessica KiangJun 19, 2015
Without the spiky irony of Flynn's first-person writing (the enjoyable Jim Thompson-esque noirisms that pepper the novel, like "I have a meanness in me, real as an organ" occur only rarely) Paquet-Brenner shears the text of any richness, to have it unfold instead in a relentlessly grim manner, less intriguing and evocative than straight-up dour. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghAug 6, 2015
Inexpert execution, lazy attention to detail and a lackluster lead performance conspire to render a juicy mystery rather boring. Read full review
40
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonAug 6, 2015
[Paquet-Brenner] squanders Dark Places' icky setup for a rote investigation to find the real killer, a revelation greeted not with a "What?!" but with a "Whatever." Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stacey May FowlesAug 17, 2015
Dark Places lacks the gloomy meditative quality that Gone Girl rode to success on, with none of the grace or subtlety necessary in making a convoluted thriller a watchable enterprise. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoAug 7, 2015
It makes sense that another of Flynn’s novels, the sinister Dark Places, would get the cinematic treatment as well, although this failed exercise could be used comparatively with “Gone Girl” as a What Not to Do cinematic lesson. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleAug 6, 2015
In writer-director Gilles Paquet-Brenner's hands, it's a convoluted, airless procedural that generates practically no suspense and little that's thematically resonant about lost souls and poisoned memories. Read full review
25
Washington PostJen ChaneyAug 6, 2015
Paquet-Brenner has assembled a talented cast.... Yet he elicits mostly unmemorable performances from just about everyone involved. Read full review
25
Boston GlobeTy BurrAug 6, 2015
Grim, ridiculous, and dull. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineChuck BowenAug 4, 2015
The payoff is a huge and telling visual howler, summarizing the entire plot with a blithe indifference that will inevitably mirror the audience's. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierAug 12, 2015
One of 2015’s dullest. Read full review
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