The Black Dahlia

When I watch a truly terrible film, a film that really makes no sense, or has people sport bizarre accents for no reason, I sometimes wonder if it was done as an ironic homage to genre and I just didn’t get it. Questions like, “Is ‘Showgirls’ really a brilliant farce on adult entertainment?” or “Is ‘Gigli” about the way we portray lesbianism in modern American media?’ have tormented me forever.

After much wrestling with the issue however, I don’t think “The Black Dahlia,” Brian De Palma’s bizarre new film, is secretly a clever exercise on the demerits of neo-noir. (Hillary Swank, I feel, is actually incapable of farce.) “The Black Dahlia” is more mundanely the result of poor directing and a ludicrous script, factors which combine to make Josh Harnett look as if he is going to cry in every scene, not that you could blame him.

“The Black Dahlia” is a fictionalization of the real life unsolved murder of Elizabeth Short, (Mia Kirshner, an alum of "The L Word"), a Medford, Mass. native who was brutally murdered in 1947. Short’s body was found disemboweled and cut in half. The murder was plastered all over the papers.

Two ex-pugilist detectives Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) and Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) are asked to investigate the brutal murder. The detectives' relationship is complicated by the fact that Bleichert has fallen in love with Blanchard’s long-suffering girlfriend Kay (Scarlett Johansson) .

As the two delve deeper into the murder, both become obsessed with it in different ways. Blanchard becomes addicted to Benzedrine and holes himself up in an apartment gazing at Short’s photographs. Bleichert becomes involved with the dangerous Madeleine Linscott (Hilary Swank), a supposed dead ringer for Elizabeth Short (even though she looks nothing like her, a plot point the apparently bothered only me). Both uncover a conspiracy that threatens to ruin their relationship and their integrity.

The synopsis I wrote appears rather simple or at least attemptable, but in fact, one of the main pitfalls of “The Black Dahlia” is its incredibly confusing and nonsensical plot. Though myriad sub-plots and unexplained nicknames may have worked in book form (the movie is based on a novel by James Ellroy) it certainly does not work in celluloid. It is incredibly difficult to tell basic relationships between the characters, and many of “The Black Dahlia” allusions to other stories and clues are never resolved.

The directing is also unable to establish consistency. De Palma has never been famous for conversation laden-"My Dinner with Andre"-style films (“Snake Eyes,” anyone?) but in such an intensely stylized and confusing adaptation, his lapses as a director are blatantly apparent.

Though the script is rather terrible--at one point Hartnett says, “I just don’t get modern art” and Swank replies, “I doubt it would get you either”--the acting is what truly sinks “The Black Dahlia.”

Though he constantly looks like he has just been punched in the face, Hartnett tries his darnedest to be a serious actor and acquits himself decently. Johansson merely manages to look sexy in 40’s outfits and accomplishes nothing in her role. Eckert is predictably volatile and under utilized. Swank is just bizarre.

The two-time Academy Award winner is undeniably mis-cast. When I do free association with Swank’s name “femme fatale with a bizarre English accent and a weird rat-like flower in her hair” is not one of the phrases that I generally come up with. She trills lines like “The family’s in Laguuuuuuna!” as if she is playing Katherine Hepburn in a drag show.

Fiona Shaw (Aunt Petunia in the Harry Potter series), who plays Ramona Linscott, Swank’s mother, is spellbindingly theatrical and genuinely funny. I think she is supposed to be disturbing and seriously deranged and neither of these things are humorous, but no matter. I take entertainment where I can find it.

Which is not to say that “The Black Dahlia” is not entertaining. Quite the contrary, a movie can be objectively bad and very entertaining. The climax is absolutely hilarious. BOTTOM LINE: “The Black Dahlia” tries hard but it is a shallow effort, hampered by a confusing plot and unfocused direction. I do want to have Josh Hartnett’s babies now, however, so I guess it accomplished something.



--Staff writer Rebecca M. Harrington can be reached at harring@fas.harvard.edu.