Dark Corners

Hollywood Year in Review: Part II

By Robert Dashiell, Box Office Brawl, January 3, 2021

Arguably one of the oddest-though undeniably most successful-films released this past year was "Dark Corners," writer-director Malcolm Lennox's follow-up to his 2018 horror-comedy smash "The Paranoid Kind." Lennox's twisted throwback was a curiosity, to say the least, but an unforgettable one.

A reworking of golden-age Hollywood film noir (Lennox jokingly called his film a "screwball thriller" in pre-release interviews), "Dark Corners" is supposed to resemble the sort of movie Hollywood would have produced in the late-1940s and early-1950s, had there never been a Motion Picture Production Code regulating content. Of course, "Corners" might not have been produced back then for other obvious reasons.

The film stars Calvin Wilmington (who won an Emmy last year for portraying legendary African-American crime boss Bumpy Johnson in the ABS miniseries "Harlem's Hitman") as the unfortunately named Woody Alleyne, a down-on-his-luck World War II veteran who is hired by the mysterious blonde Veronica Pierce (Madeleine O'Dowd) to track down the whereabouts of her missing husband Randall, who returned from the war and spent only one night with her before disappearing. As Alleyne searches in vain for Randall's whereabouts, he soon finds himself drawing closer to Veronica, resulting in an illicit-and for the time, extremely dangerous-affair.

Wilmington's work is every bit as strong as his performance in "Harlem's Hitman"; imagine 1970s-era Richard Roundtree or Billy Dee Williams in a late-1940s setting, and you have a good idea of just how powerful and charismatic Wilmington is here. O'Dowd-previously known for her work as socialite Phillipa Porter on the Australian soap opera "The Ones Next Door," as well as her performance in "Triple Zero" as a grieving mother pursuing the drug dealers responsible for her daughter's death at a music festival-delivers an exhilaratingly sexy performance as the possibly widowed Veronica. Despite the clunkiness of some of the dialogue Lennox has given her (when Woody asks Veronica why she didn't hire a private detective to find her husband, she replies that she "couldn't find a private dick big enough to handle this"), O'Dowd radiates sensuality; you get the sense that Woody really would risk running afoul of the intolerance of the times to spend a romantic evening, or several, with her.

Speaking of several romantic nights, the love scenes between Wilmington and O'Dowd are definitely the sort of scenes that never would have been filmed, much less scripted, during the era in which this film is set. Although this film is in black-and-white, the scenes are so vivid that the viewer almost forgets they're not in color; as shot by cinematographer Rodolfo Gutierrez, the lovemaking episodes are an erotic visual feast, with shots of Wilmington's hands lovingly caressing O'Dowd's breasts and stroking her platinum-blonde hair, to say nothing of oral and, yes, anal intercourse scenes so intense as to spark speculation that the screwing wasn't simulated. Either Wilmington and O'Dowd are truly two of the greatest actors of their generation or, well...you know.

It's only natural to wonder whether there was real intimacy between O'Dowd and Wilmington during the making of this film-if they hesitated before breaking their kisses, if they wanted their love scenes to run on for just a little bit longer. They're the most photogenic twosome to share a screen in a long time, and it's not hard to imagine one reason for the film's success being audiences enjoying just how good O'Dowd and Wilmington look together onscreen. (Of course, the twist ending that concludes this film-we don't do spoilers here-makes it clear that there probably won't be a direct sequel.)

"Dark Corners" is, if nothing else, a testament to the power of great casting. Despite the film's numerous plot holes (and yes, it can be argued that an affair with such passion and intensity being conducted in a clandestine fashion is perhaps the greatest plot hole of all), it works in spite of itself. Perhaps the most compelling scene in the film occurs after one of Woody and Veronica's vigorous lovemaking sessions, where she examines the various scars on his body from the war. Woody tells Veronica that from his perspective, the scars are "signs of endurance...signs that I can go through anything if I need to." As he looks at her, it's clear that he's willing to endure pain of a different sort in order to be with her. "Dark Corners" is indeed a weird conceit of a film, but for all its pains, it has plenty of pleasures as well.