Take a photo of a barcode or cover
antonblender 's review for:
Night Film
by Marisha Pessl
I went back and forth on the rating for this book. Three stars seemed too high, but two seemed to low. So let's call it two and a half.
I loved the concept of this book (a reporter investigates the work and world of a mysterious cult filmmaker after the director's daughter commits suicide) but the actual novel didn't deliver. Dialogue was hamfisted, characters behaved in bizarre ways, and the mystery itself leads pretty much nowhere as the final chapters present several different answers (none of which are entirely satisfying) without even hinting which could be the true one. What was probably an attempt to let the reader decide for themselves feels more like an author who just didn't know the end of their own book.
So why the reluctance to give it two stars? Because the world Pessl creates is fascinating, even if the characters that populate it aren't believable. We get just enough information about the body of work of the mysterious director Stanislas Cordova to make it feel real. In fact, I'd have been much happier if Night Film had been a fake scholarly text about Cordova's career (along with all of the rumours about his possible links to the supernatural) instead of a disappointing thriller using that world as its backdrop.
I loved the concept of this book (a reporter investigates the work and world of a mysterious cult filmmaker after the director's daughter commits suicide) but the actual novel didn't deliver. Dialogue was hamfisted, characters behaved in bizarre ways, and the mystery itself leads pretty much nowhere as the final chapters present several different answers (none of which are entirely satisfying) without even hinting which could be the true one. What was probably an attempt to let the reader decide for themselves feels more like an author who just didn't know the end of their own book.
So why the reluctance to give it two stars? Because the world Pessl creates is fascinating, even if the characters that populate it aren't believable. We get just enough information about the body of work of the mysterious director Stanislas Cordova to make it feel real. In fact, I'd have been much happier if Night Film had been a fake scholarly text about Cordova's career (along with all of the rumours about his possible links to the supernatural) instead of a disappointing thriller using that world as its backdrop.