By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2 cats
Director: Michael Cuesta
Starring: Beatrice Miller | Brian Cox | Dallas Roberts | Josh Lucas | Lena Heady | Pablo Schreiber | Ulrich Thomsen
Country: united_kingdom, united_states
Year: 2009
Running time: 92
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1207926/
Bruce says: “Director Michael Cuesta and screenwriter Dave Callaham go out of their way to tip their hats to Edgar Allan Poe. Cuesta has succeeded in creating a gothic atmosphere by filming TELL TALE in the old section of Providence, Rhode Island, a carefully preserved neighborhood encompassing both the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and Brown University. The Gothic atmosphere is where the similarity to Poe’s story ends. Hats should have been tipped in the direction of Clint Eastwood from whose BLOOD WORK, based on a novel of the same name by Michael Connelly, TELL TALE seems to have been copied. In both TELL TALE and BLOOD WORK the recipient of a heart transplant is on a mission to find the person(s) responsible for the heart donor’s death. In both films the donor’s killer is ultimately going to try to kill the recipient. Ho-hum, not again.
“TELL TALE is a film about secrets, among other things. Terry (Josh Lucas) asks Elizabeth (Lena Heady), his daughter’s doctor, to join them in a birthday celebration. ‘You finally asked her out!’ exclaims Angela (Beatrice Miller) a seven year old with a rare disease which fuses tendons and muscles to the bone. Angela already shows signs of the disease’s progression in her right arm. Terry has his own medical problems; he recently had a heart transplant. He sneaks a peak at his file when the doctor is out of the room and he discovers the name of his donor. With a little online research Terry finds out that his donor and wife were murdered; he also finds out the names of police detective on the case, the orderly, hospital security guard and doctor who were called to the site. Before you can get the details straight, his heart is beating more furiously than Poe’s tell-tale heart. Soon there are corpses all over the place and the police detective is the only one from the case file list that is still alive. Detective Van Doren (Brian Cox) provides much needed, albeit somewhat out of place, comic relief. He knows Terry has a secret but then he has one or two of his own.
“Bit by bit Terry figures out why his donor died and who the murderers were. With that dangerous knowledge it is unlikely Terry or Elizabeth will survive to tell the truth. The ending of the film is extraordinarily sadistic, adding another layer to the distasteful violence that precedes it. A coda to the film reveals another deeply hid secret.
“The acting, in general, is much better than the script the actors are working with. Brian Cox, so wonderful in Cuesta’s L.I.E., creates a wonderful character. Dallas Roberts and Ulrich Thomsen create creepy villains but their scrubs make them too generic to be memorably menacing. Lena Heady (MRS. DALLOWAY, RIPLEY’S GAME) is an engaging screen presence. Cuesta who has shown so much promise with the brilliant L.I.E. and his admirable follow-up film TWELVE AND HOLDING appears to have sold his soul to Hollywood with this venture. Here’s hoping we haven’t lost a bright star in the independent film arena. 2 cats
(TELL TALE screened at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.)“