lizdarkhorse 's review for:

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

2.0

---

Synopsis:

Scott McGrath is a washed up investigator journalist, who after publicly decrying a reclusive, disturbing, and cult-followed director, Stanislas Cordova, his career is in shambles. Scott McGrath deals with his life, but when the sudden suicide of Cordova's daughter, Ashley Cordova, happens he is on the case to figure out what happened. He is followed by Hopper, who keeps his own reasons as to helping out the investigation, and Nora who is a starry eyed Floridian who wants to act in New York but joins the chase. The investigation is not easy, and much like Cordova's films unravels to the darkest core of human nature.

My thoughts

First, I will say that my experience with mysteries and thrillers are limited. Beyond The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larson, I don't have much experience. I thought this would be a good character driven mystery, and some interesting psychological insights. Larson weaved his tale with socio-political commentary as well. This novel however fell flat on many different counts.

There were MOMENTS that I liked (there were some pretty creepy moments in this novel). However, I feel like this novel is too uneven for a mystery/thriller novel. The author did f*ck with my brain at times, but when the conclusion came I rolled my eyes.

Spoiler

for over two hundred pages we are lead to believe there is a supernatural element, by the end we find out that Ashley had cancer on and off. She was delusional because her mother brought a voodoo specialist for fun to her childhood home, and Ashley got caught up in it. Really? Two plot elements that are so much a trope, cliche, and trite? Those plot points annoyed me to no end.

The saving grace for me is the idea of reality versus fantasy, and how it plays out in this novel. I did like that aspect, but I thought the conclusion was a lot of infodumping and not a lot of integration of previous information. I also felt extremely cheated, considering she used one cliche after another and by the end the ending did not feel satisfactory. Good mystery/thrillers have endings that keep you on the edge of your seat and when you find it out you wished you figured it out yourself.

This novel does not live up to the hype of its author or being a good mystery/thriller.

Characters

Thinly sketched out. I never really knew the people at all. Even though the Cordovas were an interesting enigma, it felt too unbelievable regarding certain things. Scott McGrath wasn't an interesting narrator at all. Hopper's place in this story was too easy to know, and wasn't that hard to figure out. Nora is just an odd character, and how any of these characters worked together is beyond me. I wanted more character moments in this story.

Premise

I liked the premise: reclusive/cult horror filmmaker daughter commits suicide, and journalist wants to find out why. I like film, and I wanted to know how it would be interwoven. Stanislas Cordova is what you get if you put Alfred Hitchcock, Quentin Tarentino, and small auteur reclusive filmmakers is who you would get. However, the execution was less than stellar.

Pacing

It dragged at parts. This book could have been cut down to about five hundred pages, if she took out all the cheap tricks with the internet articles, photographs, and newspaper clippings. A lot of telling rather than showing happened. Lots of infodumping towards the end, which displeased me.

Believability

A lot of things in this book are hard to believe. The Cordova family would still have money, despite the fact that the director LOST DISTRIBUTION. If a film doesn't have wide distribution, it will be hard to make money and self-finance films. They own two huge estates, despite all this. Also, Theo Cordova created a language his family could speak? Really? That does not happen anywhere I know of. Ashley is the most perfect child ever, and prodigy?

Spoiler

Despite the fact that she's told the drugs she takes for her cancer will not allow her to become a pianist, and the opposite happens? Is that medically plausible?

. I feel like Marisha Pessl should have done some research on auteur filmmakers and the film industry in general. Most of this book I rolled my eyes at the plausibility.

Writing

Pessl thinks she is a clever writer, and I'll admit (begrudgingly) that were some great passages. However, there was a lot of overwriting done too.

Overall thoughts

There was a blurb that a fan of Stieg Larsson's series would like this, but Night Film does not have the characters, plotting, or thematic tones that The Millennium Trilogy has. I thought this book was too long for what it really had, and the characters and believability issues need to be rethought. Though the themes of reality versus fantasy were interesting, I wanted more psychological reasoning and less gimmicks.