The Cry of the Owl – DVD Review

I would love to come up with a catchy intro paragraph to make you want to read this review, but I’m really not positive of what happened in this movie, so I’m sort of lost as of where to begin.  I guess you could say it all starts within the wonders of the human brain.  We’ve all got illnesses, mental blocks, things that hold us back, or sometimes, even more confusingly, things that push us into a direction that we never intended to go in the first place.  What motivates people to suffer, to persevere, or to give up?

The Cry of the Owl, based off of the Patricia Highsmith novel of the same name, begins when Robert (Paddy Considine), a man whose life is halted by a messy divorce, leaves the big city for the peace and quiet of a small town.  Looking for answers, he begins watching a local girl, Jenny (Julia Stiles), who seems eternally happy, through her kitchen window at night.  When Jenny catches him in the act, she befriends the lost soul, but when her ex-boyfriend goes missing, Jenny and Robert’s new relationship places them as prime suspects in a game of foul play.

This is where I would usually comment on the acting, but I found the acting to be neither sub-par nor extraordinary, not even from one of my favorites, Julia Stiles.  Instead, let me vent my frustration with the writing and story in general.

The movie maintains a slow and steady (almost to a fault) pace though out its entirety; however, it is hard to follow at first, jumping from one character’s storyline to another, showing no contact between the two leads until about fifteen minutes in.  Just when the movie takes an exciting, unexpected plot twist and you think it will pick up the pace, it… ends?

The movie is just irrational.  The characters have no motivation for their actions, and even if there were a motive explained, their behavior is just… bizarre.  The film did, however, make me want to read Highsmith’s novel.  I have to know if it was simply the screen writer and director, Jamie Thraves, whose interpretation was unclear or if it was the original author whose writing style just doesn’t connect for me.

I guess what I felt the movie lacked was that connection to the complexities of the human mind.  I wanted to know what made the characters’ clocks tick.  I needed to know to get into the film.  I kept telling myself as something inexplicable would happen that there must be more to the story, something will come along later to clarify, but no, they just sort of left me hanging.

All this being said, I guess there were a few good things about The Cry of the Owl.  It was funny, for starters.  Unintentionally funny, but funny just the same.  See, Robert brings his dry wit and big city humor to the small town and sticks out like a sore thumb because of it!  I guess you can’t say things like, “the guns, the drugs, the prostitutes…” or “it’s not too bad; it’s probably just a tumor” and expect anything more than a blank stare from these little folks.  I laughed though…

Also, Thraves creates some beautiful visuals.  Transitions between scenes are often very intense; for example, Robert staring into the window in his new life is blurred into the city skyline where he is signing the divorce papers to end his old life.  The car rides really create a sense of his isolation from the rest of the world, the complete empty feeling of the man who has lost everything that was once important to him.  The blood spilling onto the floor…. Well, let me not spoil the only interesting scene of the movie.

As the movie cuts to end credits, Robert is again looking though Jenny’s window.  You just have to feel for this guy.  He will never be at a good place in his life ever again.  He might as well quit now.

Do you feel bad enough for him to watch the movie?  Probably not.  Do you feel bad enough for him to watch the movie again?  Absolutely not.

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