When you're in the mood to solve a dark mystery
And you can handle the unsettling feeling of not knowing what, or who to believe
The feelings we get when we escape into a dark mystery can be indulgent, morbid, shocking, curious, and confusing. Feeling this way also keeps us glued to the screen and hanging on every word, facial expression, flashback, and detail in our attempt to uncover what happened, who’s responsible, and why.
But really, we don’t want the mystery to be solved quickly. We love the slow, painful drag of a step-by-step investigation. We tentatively join the protagonists as they guide us, frame by frame, along the excruciatingly painful path that often leads us to dark corners we would never wander into in real life. It can be chilling, downright scary, and have us questioning what’s real — and we love it.
So, without further ado, my recommendations for when you’re in the mood to solve a dark mystery:
THE GAME
Easily one of my favourite movies, David Fincher’s The Game was filmed in 1997 and it remains as gripping as ever today. It is a confusing, tense, suspenseful, and action-packed film set in San Francisco that answers the question, “What do you get for the man who has everything” with a heart-pounding journey that keeps you guessing at every turn.
With its dark, atmospheric lighting and desaturated colours, The Game certainly looks like a Fincher film (Zodiac, Fight Club, Gone Girl), and its dramatic tone and quickly-paced plot will toss you between states of paranoid anxiety, short-lived catharsis, and eerie calm.
Michael Douglas shines as rich, entitled, stressed-out businessman Nicholas Van Orten. He’s in his prime in this film, and I’m here for every nasal, gravelly-voiced moment of it. Douglas truly excels at communicating every emotion a person might feel while experiencing “the game”.
The Game also has one of my favourite opening sequences of a film. Fans of Succession will notice the uncanny, near-identical similarities between its opening sequence to that of The Game, by which Succession creators were clearly inspired. Also, Succession and The Game both tell stories of fathers and sons, obscene wealth, and complicated relationships between brothers.
I often reflect on why so many of us love to watch stories of dysfunctional, rich families like those in The Game and Succession. We’re oddly fascinated and even a bit scared, but we’re also dying to see what lies beneath the polished, privileged underbellies of the excessively wealthy who seem to have everything — and we relish in their downfall. It’s a bit voyeuristic, but isn’t it also one of the oldest class struggle stories in the book?
If this film answers one question neatly, it’s likely that the only thing missing from the lives of rich people who seem to have everything is the ability to truly feel something.
P.S. — My favourite line in the film: “I am extremely fragile right now.” It’s the delivery.
You’ll like this if you like: ‘90s Michael Douglas, twisty-turny games, psychological mind-f***s, David Fincher films, Succession, San Francisco streets.
🇨🇦 Where to Stream: Crave (with Starz add-on), Amazon Prime (with Starz Channel - 7-day free trial available at time of posting).
🇨🇦 Where to Rent: YouTube, Apple Store, Cineplex Store, Google Play
Fun Facts: Many sources I’ve read online say that this is David Fincher’s least favourite of all his films.
To my knowledge (and amateur internet sleuthing), The Game is the only film Michael Douglas and Sean Penn have acted in together. Feel free to leave a comment and prove me wrong.
Look for actor/director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Her) as the paramedic with the flashlight in the climactic scene.
Check this out: I found this amazing recreation of the Succession opening sequence using clips from The Game by cartoonist Matthew Bogart, who is new to me, but I love that he made this!
THE SINNER
This is not the Bill Pullman you fell in love with in While You Were Sleeping. The TV series The Sinner (2017 - 2021), a police procedural adapted from the book by Petra Hammesfahr, emits a chilling air of mystery around acts of crime and violence and the people involved in them.
Pullman’s lead character Detective Harry Ambrose subverts the idea of a hyper-masculine detective. Ambrose is a flawed, empathetic, awkward, introverted, and self-flagellating individual whose motivation to retrace the steps of the crimes is possibly outweighed by his need to understand the person who committed them.
Watching the series, as Ambrose is investigating the crimes, we as viewers are investigating him, slowly peeling back his layers, episode by episode to understand who he is and the reasons behind his methods.
The Sinner is a bit of a slow burn, but its eerie pacing creates powerful feelings of confusion from scene to scene, which allows viewers to investigate alongside Ambrose. The cast is full of great actors from season to season, and each of the leads is very compelling, although the performance that affected me the most was that of Matt Bomer in season 3.
I’ll be honest — I’ve only seen seasons 1-3 of The Sinner to date. On to Season 4!
You’ll like this if you like: Police procedurals, Nordic noir series, Bill Pullman, The Killing, understanding past traumas, character actors, The Outsider.
🇨🇦 Where to Stream: Netflix
🇨🇦 Where to Rent: YouTube, Apple Store, Google Play
Fun Fact: Before filming, series creator Derek Simonds had the actors practice creative dream work - a technique that allows artists of all kinds to access the unconscious to create more authentic work. Bill Pullman didn’t participate in this activity until Season 3, at which point he had a dream that featured a little girl in a tiara leading him to a duck pond — and actor Keanu Reeves. Of the dream and that last detail, Pullman explained,
“Why was he in my dream?”, to which he then answered, “And then I remembered that Keanu had a very interesting response to a question in the past year, when Stephen Colbert asked him, ‘What do you think happens when we die?’ Keanu took a breath, and then he said, pretty slowly, ‘I know that the ones who love us will miss us.’ It was something about his demeanor, the profundity, and the simplicity of his response. So I think that was why, because those issues about facing death are part of this season.” (The New York Times, “What to Watch”, March 2020).
ALIAS GRACE
A measured yet gripping limited series set in Canada in the Victorian era, Alias Grace (2017) tells viewers the tale of Grace Marks, a young woman convicted of the murder of her employer and coworker, as she recounts it to a psychiatrist. The series was adapted from the book Alias Grace by the one and only Margaret Atwood, who based it on the real-life murder case of Grace Marks.
There Margaret Atwood goes again, wowing us with a riveting feminist tale with fierce dialogue and complex female characters. The team that brought this series to Netflix is a powerful female trifecta: Margaret Atwood (Supervising Producer), Sarah Polley (Writer and Executive Producer), and Mary Harron (Director and Executive Producer) work their magic to bring this text to the screen.
Actor Sarah Gadon gives a phenomenal performance as Grace Marks and excels at perfecting an accent that isn’t hers while keeping viewers constantly captivated. Paul Gross and Anna Paquin also give excellent performances as Master Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery, respectively. (Sidenote: Paul Gross would look hot even if he crawled out of a dumpster covered in garbage. And yes, I know I’m not supposed to find him attractive in this role).
You’ll like this if you like: The Handmaid’s Tale, Canadian history, true crime, Sharp Objects, poetry, Margaret Atwood.
🇨🇦 Where to Stream: Netflix, CBC Gem
Fun Facts: Celebrated Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg plays the Reverend, and Margaret Atwood herself has a cameo in the church scene, as “Difficult Woman”, a character name that she very much enjoyed.
The prison scenes were filmed at the Kingston Penitentiary where the real Grace Marks was incarcerated.
P.S. — I didn’t intentionally plan to feature Sarah Polley films in back-to-back editions of watch this: feel that — it just happened. However, if you’re new to her work, you’re welcome! (Obviously, I’m a fan.)
Streaming and rental sources listed are limited to the services and websites I subscribe to and/or have access to (in Canada) at the time of publishing. Feel free to search your streaming and cable services for these titles.