An average movie

To be honest, I had no idea what to expect from this flick but since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, I have to admit that the story did have some potential and I really liked the mood. Indeed, I thought it was actually a solid vintage serial-killer thriller taking place in Victorian London. Eventually, it’s too bad that they went for such a messy approach though. Indeed, I have never been a fan of the random chronology and it certainly didn’t improve this tale here. They also went for some ‘Rashomon’ approach which had some potential but they didn’t really go very far in that direction. Still, it was fun that they included some real figures like Karl Marx, Dan Leno and George Gissing (even though I have to admit that I had never heard of Leno and Gissing before watching this movie). Furthermore, Olivia Cooke, who was probably the main reason why I wanted to see this movie in the first place, was pretty good and so charming as usual. Eventually, they did end with a twist but, since it is so inherent to the genre, it was hardly surprising. Even worse, it was not really interesting and it didn’t really work out. Indeed, in my opinion, it did ruin Olivia Cooke’s and Bill Nighy’s respective characters. I mean, the whole point was to show that Kildare was a brilliant and underestimated detective but it made him look like an idiot who couldn’t identify the killer when she was actually in front of him the whole time. For Lizzie Cree, it was even worse as it so completely contradicted how the character was presented through the whole duration. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch though and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.