White of the Eye

This movie tries to be a lot more than it is. While I enjoyed "Performance" with Mick Jagger, this movie fails at whatever it tries to accomplish. There are lots of subtexts to the story that go nowhere. The marriage of David Keith and Cathy Moriarty is not a happy one. She is unlikeable and just reacts without considering the outcome of her actions.

The movie has no apparent continuity. It jumps all over the place. The acting by the cops is atrocious. David Keith and Cathy Moriarty do a creditable job.

Since the director committed suicide in 1996, his movie total is small and this one might be viewed by those who consider themselves completists. Othrwise it might appeal as a slasher movie with the predictable suspense that genre occasionally provides.

I can't recommend this movie nor can I think of a reason to see it again.


Not What You'd Expect   July 31, 2000
 7 out of 10 found this review helpful

This is a great movie. Charting a particularly difficult marital crisis, the film addresses subjects of love, honesty and loyalty. Is it possible to love someone unconditionally - no matter what? How much can you really know someone you are married to? At what point are you emotionally betrayed by a lover?

The movie follows a typical 80's slasher framework for the first two acts. This cliched, predictable structure allows plenty of opportunity to explore the issues mentioned above.

In the third act, beginning with a grisly bathroom discovery, the slasher movie genre stutters. Expectations here would be for a frantic, exciting chase, with the tables ultimately turned on the killer. We don't get that - really - and this has led some to judge the film as a failure.

Instead, Cammell explores more fully the relationship between the husband and wife. In a hugely unsettling sequence we see their original courtship, the closeness between them now and their reluctance to function in the world apart from each other.

It might be risky, but Cammell pulls it off - just - to make a film that is compelling, disturbing and absurdly romantic. The epilogue, on the surface lifted directly from the 80's straight-to-video handbook, contains an elegance and poignancy which throws this movie in a wonderfully uplifting light.

Performances from the two principles, particularly Moriarty, are faultless. Cinematography and editing are of a similar high standard to Cammell's other work. For some, the movie will be stylistically a period piece, but it is none the worse for this.

If you want a typical slasher movie, get Halloween instead. However if you can see past the cliched 80's format, occasionally awkward arhouse pretensions and extremely challenging subversion of genre, "White of the Eye" is one of the best-observed relationship dramas you are likely to see this, or any, year.