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A review by ojtheviking
Night Film by Marisha Pessl
5.0
Although by now (especially in recent years) I've read my share of books, many of which I've thoroughly enjoyed, I haven't really always felt too strongly that feeling others describe, that they are left with a feeling of desperation by the time they get to the last page of a book, because they don't want it to be over. This book may be the first one to truly give me that experience, in the most positive sense.
I absolutely loved this novel, one of the best ones I've read, not just so far this year, but perhaps so far in my life, and it was like a jolt to the system when I turned to a new page and arrived at the author's acknowledgments. I immediately had this sense of not being prepared for it. "Wait! It can't end NOW!" But in retrospect, I found it to be perfect, and very much in the same spirit as the rest of the novel.
The book is written in first-person, and it's as if Pessl has been able to anticipate the readers' reactions to the twists and turns of the story, as if the novel's main character was the readers' avatar, like how we control a video game character, only the tables were somewhat turned. The mystery of the story was so well-crafted, that by the time the main character said to himself things along the lines of "But this couldn't be possible, right?" and "But what about THAT detail? That couldn't have been false, could it?" these were basically my own thoughts at the exact same moments. You might say that this is the job of a skilled author, to make you feel and think what the character feels and thinks, but to me, in the context of this book, it's like Pessl is quite intentionally manipulating you the same way people within the story are being manipulated by other sources. It's all very meta.
Along the way, there is a very clear duality, sort of leaving it up to you what you choose to believe. Murder or suicide. Psychological thriller, or supernatural. Disease or curse. Visions from beyond or hallucinations under the influence. And in an expertful way, Pessl managed to introduce us to a scenario revolving around a mysterious death, and only create bigger mysteries as the story unfolds. The quest to find the answer to one question led to a whole new line of questions, and by the time the answers seemingly presented themselves, you're no longer sure whether to believe them or to suspect it's just another piece of a grander puzzle. Or is the puzzle a scam?
I also love the detailed world-building here. Within a story that makes you question what is real, the story itself becomes truly life-like with all the extra work put into this, with some of the book's pages being made to look like old magazine interviews, newspaper headlines, website articles, medical reports, and so on. When the book started with a quote by the novel's infamous and mythical movie director, Cordova, supposedly taken from an interview printed in Rolling Stone in 1977, I thought for a moment it was a real quote, and it set the tone for these occasional moments of the aforementioned world-building. Pessl constructed the universe of her story as meticulously as Cordova constructed the universe of his movies, and of his own private life, and it really adds a third dimension to these pages, where you legitimately feel like you've stepped into another world, before it spits you back out at the end, leaving you alone with nothing but your own thoughts and freedom to make up your own mind about what it is you've been reading.
All in all, I consider it to be one of the cases where all the praise printed on the cover and inside the first few pages of the book was 100% spot on. This novel deserves all the praise it got and more. This was, in short, an exceptional journey.
I absolutely loved this novel, one of the best ones I've read, not just so far this year, but perhaps so far in my life, and it was like a jolt to the system when I turned to a new page and arrived at the author's acknowledgments. I immediately had this sense of not being prepared for it. "Wait! It can't end NOW!" But in retrospect, I found it to be perfect, and very much in the same spirit as the rest of the novel.
The book is written in first-person, and it's as if Pessl has been able to anticipate the readers' reactions to the twists and turns of the story, as if the novel's main character was the readers' avatar, like how we control a video game character, only the tables were somewhat turned. The mystery of the story was so well-crafted, that by the time the main character said to himself things along the lines of "But this couldn't be possible, right?" and "But what about THAT detail? That couldn't have been false, could it?" these were basically my own thoughts at the exact same moments. You might say that this is the job of a skilled author, to make you feel and think what the character feels and thinks, but to me, in the context of this book, it's like Pessl is quite intentionally manipulating you the same way people within the story are being manipulated by other sources. It's all very meta.
Along the way, there is a very clear duality, sort of leaving it up to you what you choose to believe. Murder or suicide. Psychological thriller, or supernatural. Disease or curse. Visions from beyond or hallucinations under the influence. And in an expertful way, Pessl managed to introduce us to a scenario revolving around a mysterious death, and only create bigger mysteries as the story unfolds. The quest to find the answer to one question led to a whole new line of questions, and by the time the answers seemingly presented themselves, you're no longer sure whether to believe them or to suspect it's just another piece of a grander puzzle. Or is the puzzle a scam?
I also love the detailed world-building here. Within a story that makes you question what is real, the story itself becomes truly life-like with all the extra work put into this, with some of the book's pages being made to look like old magazine interviews, newspaper headlines, website articles, medical reports, and so on. When the book started with a quote by the novel's infamous and mythical movie director, Cordova, supposedly taken from an interview printed in Rolling Stone in 1977, I thought for a moment it was a real quote, and it set the tone for these occasional moments of the aforementioned world-building. Pessl constructed the universe of her story as meticulously as Cordova constructed the universe of his movies, and of his own private life, and it really adds a third dimension to these pages, where you legitimately feel like you've stepped into another world, before it spits you back out at the end, leaving you alone with nothing but your own thoughts and freedom to make up your own mind about what it is you've been reading.
All in all, I consider it to be one of the cases where all the praise printed on the cover and inside the first few pages of the book was 100% spot on. This novel deserves all the praise it got and more. This was, in short, an exceptional journey.