The Moth Diaries: It’s a Vampire Movie But Now with the Convenience of Built-in Ambien

Sometimes acclaimed and often controversial director Mary Harron (American Psycho, I Shot Andy Warhol) has taken on the task of bringing the Rachel Klein novel to..um, life, but with little success. While armed with a quasi-interesting story, a strong all-around cast, and chilling cinematography, Harron fails to put this film on the map, but does succeed in helping audiences get a good night’s sleep.

Premise: Suspicious of Ernessa, the new arrival at her boarding school, Rebecca is jealous of her bond with Lucie and tries to uncover her deep, dark secret Result: A nice looking but boring film that goes no place we want it to go.

The Moth Diaries is the story of Rebecca (Sarah Bolger), who attends an all-girl’s prep school located in a former hotel. The ravishing grounds, the aged architecture, and the classic décor add to the gothic experience creating a world of beauty and romance.  Harron juxtaposes this well with the culture of the environment, a strict academy that barely has control of young girls who live in modern society; this thereby sets up the central struggle of the narrative, between the romance of an era past, and modernity.

Of course, there are other issues afoot that elevate the story from just being another gaggle of girls growing up, thinking about hair, boys, and the traveling pants they hold so dear. Rebecca is the daughter of a famed poet who took his own life and she has lived in the aftermath, coping and healing.  She used the support of her best friend Lucie (Sarah Gadon) to bring her back from devastation, and this bond forged them closely.  And Lucie, Rebecca, Dora (Melissa Farman), Sophia (Laurence Hamelin), and Kiki (Gia Sandhu) (and perhaps others, some are too similar to tell) are best of friends and all is well in the world once more.

That is until she comes; this Ernessa (Lily Cole) who brings a shadowy sense of foreboding that even her awful name cannot truly capture.  Rebecca senses something strange about her instantly and becomes intensely jealous of how close she and Lucie are becoming.  For much of the film, this premise builds ever so slowly, creeping languidly with suspicions, and questions, and Rebecca basically being as caddy and annoying as “humanly” possible.

Worse still is the painfully forced foreshadowing (likely a remnant from the book) that has the girls reading the book Camilla, one of the first gothic vampire tales ever written about conveniently just such an episode. Introduced by randomly new teacher Mr. Davies (Scott Speedman), his relevance to the film is entirely questionable, and frankly eye-roll-prompting by film’s end.

Ultimately, the film begins spiraling into a cringe-inducing mix of Nancy Drew and The Babysitters Club, with all its routine and minor intrigue and muted impacts.  As one-by-one the girls in the group begin leaving or dying off, and Lucie becomes a walking corpse, audiences will find it hard to keep the story straight, or even recall why they were interested in the first place.  Add on yet another layer with a creepy, confusing injection of les-eroticism, and you have yourself a film made for a yet to be identified audience.

It's Raining Blood, Hallelujiah!

But it keeps marching on, eventually introducing blood, moths, (many) dream sequences,   flashbacks, and explanations that  either explain nothing or fall with a loud dud onto the floor. Fortunately Harron is actually a good filmmaker, at least from the visual sense, and she manages quite successfully to create several eerie scenes and an onscreen experience that almost brings this film back from the dead.  Unfortunately, there is nothing saving this bore-fest.

Not even the acting.  The film is loaded with good actors, even if you may never have heard of them. Speedman and Judy Parfitt (Ms. Rood) are the experienced and recognizable figures, but they exist far from the center of the film, distanced either by the plot, or a subsequent realization that this film was going no place.  Bolger and Gadon are strong in their roles as estranged best friends, and Bolger as detective has its minor merits; unfortunately, even the best delivery of an unwanted product, remains unwanted.

The same can be said of Cole, who is a perfectly creepy young girl, mastering the haunting, ethereal nature of the mysterious Ernessa, and owning the frighteningly doll-like visage they splash onto her. But with a sinuous plot that leads to oblivion, creepy isn’t sufficient to keep us involved. All the rest were good, but ironically, the most interesting happened to be the one character least relevant to the film: Kiki, played by Sadhu, who nails the character of a troubled but free-spirited young girl.  A film all about her would be infinitely more watchable.

In the end, The Moth Diaries fails to connect in most ways, setting up a dull, choppy tale with completely muted impacts and resolution.  Unfortunately for Harron, this might have been a good film that instead languishes in that eternal void of buyer’s remorse. 

Rating: 5 – A luke-warm Pinot Grigio