The Riddle

Perhaps the most uninteresting who done it film I’ve seen lately, as with the parallel stories of similar murders, one told in first person by Charles Dickens and another happening in current time London you cannot get interested in one or the other and becomes a dull movie.

The movie is about a journalist that investigates a series of murders that follows the discovery of an unpublished novel by Charles Dickens. He gradually becomes obsessed with unraveling a century-old murder in the pages of the manuscript and only when he has done so, with the help of a mysterious beach-combing tramp, he is able to solve the modern murders.

One thing I really liked, the opportunity to see Vanessa Redgrave playing a role where she looks like an elegant woman, similar to what she looks in real life.

What it's really interesting is that this is the first movie that goes direct-to-DVD and to be distributed in a Sunday newspaper for free. When reading about the idea and the negotiation I became more excited than when seeing the movie as for an independent movie this breakthrough idea seems like a big hit in movie distribution as the newspaper paid big bucks for the rights to do it in UK, the producers got big bucks back fast –which means fast ROI- (perhaps even more than what they could have gotten from tickets sales) and now they have the rest of the world to distribute the movie the traditional way. Of course with the novelty, the newspaper was sold-out that Sunday with something like 2.6 million free DVD’s. Very interesting.

If you would like to read more about the business deal google the movie or check the article from Robert J. Elisberg in The Blogs of The Huffington Post here.

Unfortunately the movie is not that exciting, but the business scheme is one that can be copied by independent movies all over the world, that’s for sure.