The Cry of the Owl

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Mathilda May e Christophe Malavoy in “Le cri du hibou” di Claude Chabrol, 1987, il più celebre adattamento di questo romanzo. However, the book is still a crazy read. There's not a person without a few screws loose among the main cast. Highsmith's writing is like a mannerly Jim Thompson. You get the feeling she knew first hand about the crazy shit she was writing about, much like old Jim. In the midst of divorce proceedings, depressed aeronautics designer Robert Forrester (Paddy Considine) attempts to cheer himself up by spying on Jenny Thierolf (Julia Stiles), a pretty and seemingly content young woman who lives in a remote house by the woods. When Jenny catches Robert peeping on her, she believes him when he says he means her no harm, and invites him into the house for a chat. However, Jenny turns out to be even more disturbed than Robert, revealing to him her own struggle with mental illness; in the following days, she turns the tables by stalking her stalker. This puts Robert in mortal danger, not from his new 'friend', but from her ex-boyfriend, who isn't best pleased at being dumped for a 'nut-job'. I remember when I saw this the first time that I didn't really care for the lead guy too much; he was really just SO annoying because he didn't seem to be able to communicate with others at all. VERY frustrating... But, as the film progresses you begin to see other sides to him and he is not at all as self-absorbed and one dimensional as one may have thought.

Sometimes Highsmith chooses the worst sins of noir: the cinematic episodes; a character lying about just one fragment of a story; maybe one coincidence too many. But then a father will come to bail a son out of jail, the father looking ten years older than his age, a sad silence painting its own family history.The Cry of the Owl" is about a man who's in the middle of a messy divorce and who accidentally witnesses a (supposed) marital bliss when he peeks through a window in his neighborhood. When the woman catches him spying on her, she asks him in, and all of a sudden the tables are turned: she starts to stalk him and he gets to deal with her jealous dumped boyfriend.

Quelli che mi lasciano proprio senza fiato sono i libri che quando li hai finiti di leggere e tutto quel che segue vorresti che l'autore fosse un tuo amico per la pelle e poterlo chiamare al telefono tutte le volte che ti gira. Holden Cauldfield dixit. Jenny’s car was there, and so was Robert’s. She was blatantly spending nights there. This might be the seventh, the tenth, for all he knew. Lights were blazing in the house now. He imagined them laughing and talking and fixing dinner, Jenny making one of her big salads, and then – Greg couldn’t bear to imagine any more. (p. 78) Ich kann sehr gut nachvollziehen warum Frau Highsmith bezüglich des Herausstellens psychologischer Abgründe der Menschen gefeiert wird.

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So, what are we to think? Is he dangerous? Is he a serial killer or rapist? No, he is harmless, but somehow watching this young woman gives him a sense of calm. Except for this quirk, Robert is the only mostly normal character. Chabrol ha diretto un buon adattamento di questo bel romanzo, trasformando la civetta in gufo. Scelse come protagonisti due attori che hanno avuto un breve momento di gloria anche in Italia, Christophe Malavoy e Mathilda May. Lei di persona faceva venire i brividi. On the other side I did have some trouble with Paddy Considine as Robert. Sure, he played the dull, neurotic, passive and slightly cowardly character to perfection. Yet something was amiss. All of miss H's anti-heroes have to be handsome in an all-American way, they have to look and behave like someone's ideal son-in-law. It's partly this contrast between their outward charm and their inward neuroses that's responsible for the troubles they get themselves into. So it should be the same in this story, where it's even more important that the main character is a nice and charming guy, to make it believable that there's this very sexy and debonair ex-wife who still lusts after him and that he can have at the same time such an appeal on this pretty Jenny. It's also important for us, the audience, to have enough reason to sympathize with him. With Considine unfortunately this is rather very hard and his supposed attractiveness is totally unbelievable. He looks old, ragged and worn out, drags himself around, speaks in a slugged, drawling voice and more or less looks like an escaped convict the whole movie through. This only fits in the parts where he looses his cool and beats the hell out-off someone, but in the rest of the movie it's just not enough in sync with the premise of a charming guy who's sought-after by two beautiful women.

Apparently this book was one of Highsmith's least favourites of her work, and in a way I understand why. The characters are weak - I don't have the same depth in understanding of them as I have in her other books. Forester is mysteriously passive, his ex wife is inexplicably evil, and the rest of them are rather thinly drawn or downright perplexing. The police are antagonistic and blind. Societal condemnation is shallow, damning and contributes to a claustrophobic, trapped reality for the protagonist. I watched this after seeing Julia Stiles on this season's Dexter and I couldn't help but think the producers must have seen her in this, her characters in both being both haunted with pain, yet filled with resolve. Paddy Considine does a great job playing a man who seems to have been run through the washer and dryer a few too many times, both distant and filled with an undercurrent of emotion.Highsmith riesce a essere lucida e analitica immergendosi in geografie d’inconscio e irrazionale. Coniuga Kafka e Dostoevskij nel thriller. I started watching this movie laying in bed and by the time I was nearing the end all my blankets were twisted one way or another. And I admit, I did not even know this was from the guy who did The Talented Mr. Ripley, which I would probably have given a 6.5/7 after seeing in theaters. Patricia Highsmith είναι γάτα στο να μας παρουσιάσει την πλήρη διατομή μιας άβολης, μυστηριώδους ιστορίας περνώντας μας από το κόσκινο της ψυχοσύνθεσης όλων των εμπλεκόμενων προσώπων, μέσω της συμπεριφοράς τους σε μια δεδομένη κατάσταση. Η κραυγή της κουκουβάγιας είναι ένα βιβλίο με γεγονότα στην επιφανειακή στιβάδα και με ψυχογραφικούς κόμπους και αινίγματα προς τα μέσα. Τα γεγονότα είναι το περιτύλιγμα, όμως η προσοχή στρέφεται στο εσωτερικό των χαρακτήρων και από εκεί εφορμά η μοναδική ατμόσφαιρα της αφήγησης. The setting for this book is much like the area where Highsmith was currently living in New Hope, Pennsylvania. [2]

It premiered on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in most countries, with Canada and France being among the few exceptions. It was released in the UK on April 19, 2010, and in the US on June 8, 2010. Also in 1987, German writer-director Tom Toelle directed an adaption for West German television titled Der Schrei der Eule. [8]

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Le sue storie sono thriller: non gialli, non polizieschi, non noir, ma thriller. Con un particolare stile di suspense: niente colpi di scena né salti sulla sedia, niente effetti, men che meno effettacci. Sottile, Patricia è sottile, usa lame lunghe affilate e sottili. Paddy Considine as Robert Forrester is very good here. He is a man going through an at-fault divorce, Caroline Dhavernas is irritating as ex- wife Nikki. He relocates and changes jobs from New York City to get away from her and start over. He thinks.