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Title: Half Light (2006) Starring: Demi Moore, James Cosmo, Ceit Kearney, Hans Matheson, and Jamie Edgell Director: Not available Rating: R (Restricted) Runtime: 110 minutes Avg. Score: 4 Submit Comment Hits: 22

Review of Half Light

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Comments for Half Light

• Posted on 2007-12-27
  A poignant little gem
  
  True, aspects of the plot have been 'borrowed' from 'Gaslight' and 'The Wicker Man' with explicit homage to Hitchock but give me an example of a plot line that is not derivative these days...
  
  I suspended my critical faculties, regarded it as a romantic thriller and know what ? I thoroughly enjoyed this film. The plot is suffused with an elegiac feel in keeping with a sub text of loss (and ultimately, reconciliation). Production values are very high (apart from one sequence featuring an unconvincing panorama of a cgi lighthouse. The actual lighthouse only has one storey. Filmed in Anglesey but set in the western highlands of Scotland using an authentic Scottish cast. The celtic influenced score greatly enhances the film, adding most effectively to the the sense of mood, menace and milieu. Demi Moore gives a convincing central performance, Hans Matheson ably teases out the facets of his complex character/s.
  
  The plot structure is wreathed by supernatural overtones and an air of impending threat hovers over the tale as vulnerable Rachel battles guilt over the death of her son. But whence does the threat emanate ?
  Who, or what, is behind the ghostly warnings and portents ?
  Her jealous ex husband ? the local villagers ? the wraith of her drowned son ? the mysterious lighthouse keeper Angus, with whom she enjoys some fleeting hours of comfort ? Rachel's literary agent ?
  or is it all of them ?
  
  Watch the DVD and find out!
  
  All told, its a poignant little gem which deserved a much wider release.
  
  Score: 4
• Posted on 2007-09-12
  I DON'T THINK SO
  
  
  I liked the cinematography but the movie as a whole, in my opinion, is just another Demi Moore stinker. As a mother myself I was appalled at the lack of emotion the mother (Ms. Moore) demonstrated at the loss of her only son. And to get into a love relationship shortly thereafter? A real mother in the same situation would be completely immobilized. The devastation from losing a child would be heart-breaking and of long duration. It would rule your every waking moment for years. I felt none of this from Demi Moore's character or the movie. In a film, it is difficult to successfully combine the plot of the loss of a child with sex and suspense. In "Halflight" it certainly doesn't work.
  
  Demi Moore is quite pretty in the film and the scenery is charming. It's an interesting little film about intrigue, but it disappointed me on the one important level. Because of that I found Demi Moore's character to be unsympathetic and unbelievable.
  
  Rent, don't buy.
  Score: 1
• Posted on 2007-09-12
  Some what like a Hitchcock movie
  
  Caught a portion of this movie on Korean TV, with Hangul (Korean) sub-titles, got interested and ordered DVD. Nice movie, plot within a plot within a plot. Final scenes have a twisted ending. Would recommend it on a stormy night with a friend. I liked it so much I have loaned it-out, and no one was disappointed. To be candid I must have missed it when it first came out, Demi Moore does a pretty good job with her character.
  Score: 4
• Posted on 2007-09-08
  Simply Heart Touching
  
  WOW! I stumbled on this movie by accident. I hadn't even heard of it. Did it ever make the movies? It should have! Like Passion of Mind, Demi Moore touched our hearts as a mother loving her child and trying to cope after he drowns. I can't even fatham the grief someone feels in loosing a 5 year old child (or any age of a child). Then you throw in a ghost story with a murder plot and you have a great story. I have watched this a couple of dozen times and each time I walk away with some thing different left in my heart. Movies like this I usually buy a back up copy just incase I wear it out. Alaskanchatterbox
  Score: 5
• Posted on 2007-07-22
  Effective story beyond the models
  
  This film could have been a bore due to the direct allusion, both in situations, images and dialogues, to Stephen King and Tabitha King, except that Tabitha King is the not succeeding author husband who refers himself as the victim of the Tabitha King syndrome, which makes his successful author wife the Stephen King of the story. I will not push further the parallels and allusions because very fast the film departs from the model and finds its own pace and color, kind of a strange way of saying that great parts of it are more in black and white than in colors. The thriller is fascinating because it is treated as if it were a ghost and horror story. Of course the end is slightly disappointing because it is cool and peaceful. A punch line is missing that could let the psychic horror side of the story open. But after all it was not a horror story, just a thriller and as such it is perfect, though the final miracle is nothing but a miracle, so that after all the dead might still be alive. The very static aspect of the film is in perfect agreement with these distant provinces of England, half English and half Celtic, including some Celtic language that is not subtitled for you to have the feeling you can only have in these countries or English counties when you do not understand the local dialect. The best part of the film is the use of a quasi black and white technique for the night scenes: it is just what we need for the scenes to be alive with some deeper second meaning. Hitchcock is of course a model that is used in a few scenes too.
  
  Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
  
  Score: 4