‘The crimes of the academy’: what you need to know about the hit movie on Netflix

The two most prominent releases of the beginning of 2023 on Netflix were the Serie Kaleidoscope and the movie the crimes of the academy, which is among the most viewed on the platform in these first weeks of the year. It is a mystery story set in 1830, at the West Point military academy, and with a detective who is tasked with solving a murder. For this he will have the help of one of the cadets, Edgar Allan Poe, who will end up being a famous writer.

The film adapts a book by Louis Bayard that started a series of his novels in which there were some real historical figure investigating a mystery, such as the nineteenth-century French detective Vidocq or various intellectuals from Elizabethan England, including Christopher Marlowe. The starting material of the crimes of the academy was nominated for an Edgar Award and its original title, The pale blue eye (the pale blue eye), comes from a line of The Tell-Tale Heartone of Poe’s best-known stories.

What is ‘The Academy Murders’ about?

Augustus Landor, a retired police officer, is hired by the commanding director of the West Point military academy to to investigate the death of one of his cadets, Leroy Fry. We are in 1830 and the institution is still relatively new, so its leaders prefer that the investigation be discreet and fast so that its detractors do not use it to attack it in the corridors of power in Washington.

Landor, however, runs into the wall of silence from the rest of the cadets, so he looks for one of them to help him. The chosen one is a young Edgar Allan Poe, who has not yet fully dedicated himself to literature and who does not quite fit into the military environment. Both will unravel a plot that will even lead them to look at their own past traumas.

who’s who in the movie

The director and screenwriter of the crimes of the academy is scott cooperdirector of the film that gave Jeff Bridges the Oscar, Rebel Heartand the horror tape, antlers. Cooper enlists a big-name cast to bring the story to life, starting with the duo they form. Christian Bale and Harry Melling Like Landor and Poe. The former recently released the film Amsterdamby David O. Russell, while the latter has gone from his beginnings as Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter saga to participate, for example, in queen’s gambit.

They are joined in the cast by Timothy Spall, Toby Jones, Harry Lawtey (Why don’t you ask Evans?), Lucy Boyton (The Ipcress file), Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus) and Gillian Anderson, among others.

What have they said about her?

opinions more extended upon the crimes of the academy is that it is as passionless and cold as that snowy winter in which it takes place, and which has interesting elements that never end up cohesive. It is also pointed out that, although he builds the atmosphere to launch an interesting Gothic story, his central mystery ends up being less important than it seems, an excuse to tell other things.

What is very remarkable is Harry Melling’s performance as Poe. His on-screen appearance breathes life into the film and practically justifies his existence, as he forms a fine duo with Bale’s taciturn and brooding detective. The acting team borders on a high level, but is more trapped in that more corseted version of the mystery.