SummaryA series of events forces Lisey Landon (Julianne Moore) to face her memories of her marriage to her husband (Clive Owen), a famous novelist who died two years earlier in this thriller based on Stephen King's novel of the same name.
SummaryA series of events forces Lisey Landon (Julianne Moore) to face her memories of her marriage to her husband (Clive Owen), a famous novelist who died two years earlier in this thriller based on Stephen King's novel of the same name.
The outright fantastical elements of “Lisey’s Story,” some being of the monster-in-the woods variety, feel at some point to be in conflict with the more palpable drama at hand. ... All the performances are first-rate. Mr. Owen is in rare form. ... Ms. Allen and Ms. Moore are extraordinary and, though she plays to type, Jennifer Jason Leigh is a treat as Darla, the third Debusher sister.
As the show progresses and the logistics of her journey come into sharper relief, it’s natural to wonder if all of this is worth it. It’s never an easy “yes,” but when the obfuscation starts to melt away and the show isn’t bent on delivering the extremes of human behavior, the punishing ride leads to a destination with some unexpected rewards.
It swings for something big and cinematic and artistic and deep, which you may take as a good plan or a bad one. It is the sort of work that some will find ineffably beautiful and others unbearably tiresome. Acknowledging its prettiness and production values, and some excellent performances, I found it better than unbearable but something less than beautiful.
The overall problem in Lisey’s Story generally doesn’t concern the actors — or the director, since Larrain gives every frame intimacy, however much you sense his desire to buck the increased linearity of the story. No, the problem is the all-too-palpable battle between fidelity to a text and compatibility to a medium.
Adapted exclusively by King from his own 2006 novel, Lisey's Story is a mess in almost every conceivable way. It's drawn from a leaden and forgettable novel, and King's ponderous attempt at a screenplay has done nothing to improve it. Neither has Chilean director Pablo Larrain's painfully arty translation of the written word into video. And while Lisey's Story is loaded with female star power—Julianne Moore, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Joan Allen play sisters—King and Larrain have given them little to do except look head-bangingly anguished or (in Allen's case) catatonic.