Written by: Zak Hilditch, Stephen King (short story)
Directed by: Zak Hilditch
Starring: Thomas Jane, Molly Parker, Dylan Schmid
Rated: TV-MA
Plot
Based on a Stephen King novella where an unreliable narrator confesses to killing his wife, Arlette James wants to sell her family's land to a livestock company. If she does so her husband Wilfred's family property will become unfarmable. To stop her Wilfred resorts to manipulating his teenage son Henry to help murder Arlette.
Verdict
This is a slow burn as Wilfred's crimes slowly gnaw at him. His attempt at keeping everything ends with his losing it all. It's part The Tell-tale Heart with a dash of a morality via an O. Henry story type ending. This isn't about the crime, but the ramifications that follow.
Watch it.
Review
This novella was one of four published in 2010 as a collection titled Full Dark, No Stars.
Set just before the depression, Arlette plans to sell her inheritance of land and move to the city. Her husband Wilfred is unwilling to go with her and give up his adjacent property. This is framed with Wilfred writing a letter in the future, confessing to his crimes. He blames his actions on the "conniving man inside" himself. It's an easy excuse, but a man like this has some demons. Thomas Jane does a great job as Wilfred, though he's the only one with a thick mid-west accent. It's appropriate, I assume, but makes everyone else sound weird.
Wilfred is a piece of work. He manipulates his son into helping him. It did seem a bit convenient to demonize Arlette the night of the murder. While she is drunk, which is part of the plan, she gives her son multiple reasons to be mad which felt too easy. If that's her personality, we should have seen some glimpse of it earlier. Up to this instance, her relationship with Henry seemed fine. Maybe that's the point, that she isn't all that good either, but it robs her of sympathy. Based on her previous scenes, it seemed out of character for her to rebuke Henry for not having already undressed his girlfriend.
Who is the villain? Is it Arlette for trying to uproot the family? Granted Wilfred is clearly in the wrong, but has she been nasty to him for years? We don't know. This confession is written from Wilfred's point of view so we don't know if some of these events are portrayed to better suit him, if only a little bit. Neither Arlette or Wilfred are willing to bend.
Wilfred's son resents him for what happened, though it was easy to guess that would happen. Wilfred's life unravels, tormented by the murder. While he was able to cover up the murder and evade the police, his conscience was constantly attacked. He can't bear it, usually resorting to drinking himself into a stupor.
This had to be inspired by The Tell-tale Heart. Wilfred hears things and even sees his dead wife. It's guilt manifested. The movie follows his spiral and eventually catches up with him writing the letter that is his confession. I was hoping for some kind of twist, something with the son or that Wilfred made up the events in the letter, but it's a mild ending. I like the book's ending much better. It ends with his body found in a hotel room, with no obvious cause of death. Self inflicted bite marks are all over his body and his letter is illegible, chewed to pieces. This ending of the book directly challenges the credibility of his account. Was it all a delusion? The downside is that if the events in the movie didn't actually happen, we just watched a farce. While the book is ambiguous, the movie indicates the events did happen. There's a way to combine both endings, questioning his confession while confirming he is definitely consumed by guilt.
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