THE BAY OF SILENCE
Vertical Entertainment
Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten
Director: Paula Van Der Oest
Screenwriter: Caroline Goodall from the novel by Lisa St. Aubin de Terán
Cast: Claes Bang, Olga Kurylenko, Brian Cox, Assaad Bouab, Alice Krige, Caroline Goodall, ShalishaJames-Davis
Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 8/2/20
Opens: August 14, 2020
In what some may believe to be Hitchcockian, “The Bay of Silence” is a thriller that is too convoluted to thrill, filled with characters who may or may not know the secrets involving the disappearance of a woman and the death of their child. The principal couple are Rosalind (Olga Kurylenko) and her husband Will (Claes Bang), who open the movie with romantic scenes in Liguria, Italy. They are a successful, middle-class couple living in London. She is an artist, he an engineer, whose lives together are complicated by the presence of Rosalind’s former stepfather, Milton (Brian Cox), who will do anything to protect Rosalind, even offering money to her husband.
Rosalind, who in one scene may be sleepwalking, or may be fully awake but in a schizophrenic break seems to peels the wallpaper of their home. When Rosalind and her nanny Candy (Shalisha James-Davis) disappear with Rosalind’s two eight-year-old girls and Will and Rosalind’s newborn son Amadeo, Will finds her in Normandy but little Amadeo is dead. He buries the child, determined to leave the police out of the situation in order to protect his wife.
The picture may require multiple viewings, moving ever-so-slowly until in a melodramatic flourish near the conclusion involving a mysterious fellow, Pierre Laurent (Assaad Bouab) who is the key to the mystery. The movie is adapted from the novel by Lisa St. Aubin de Terán. No doubt a reading of the book will serve to uncover the dreary film.
95 minutes. © 2020 by Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – C-
Acting – B-
Technical – B
Overall – C