James Ellroy was not well served in the new film based on _
The Black Dahlia._ Johannson (Kay Lake) looked like a
confused guppie with slathered-on lipstick. Eckhart (Lee
Blanchard) did not have the time to show the mixture of
military respect for his partner and (in the novel)
non-sexual love of his wife (he needed an idol not a person
to love). A key moment was when Johannson told Hartnett
(Bucky Bleichert) he was fetishizing the BD -- she was
thinking of what her husband had done. This should have
resonated with the audience but did not. The character of
Ellis Lowe was a good vignette, and so was the incestuous
daughter, but the dark nuttiness of Swank, an epitome of the
all-American moral and emotional confusion (Bushworld has
deep roots) of the three leads, did not resonate either as it
did in the novel. It should have helped, but did not, that
Swank was the opposite of the innocent and vulnerable Betty
Short. My major impression was that the writing as well as
the acting was subpar. But then, I do not know how much
Ellroy was involved, if at all, in the screenplay.
One of the pleasures of reading Ellroy is the leisure one has
to savor the perverseness or vitality of the characters and
place them in their setting. Somehow, despite the running
time, the movie seemed rushed. And fuzzy.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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