I thought it was quite faithful to the book, though not as much as I thought it would be (they kinda glanced over Teddy's whole Rule of Four thing here, and no, I don't remember the entire thing, so please don't ask)

After seeing the movie, it becomes pretty clear that Lehane's story is a psychological character drama disguised as a densely-plotted noir thriller. The film looked and felt like a noir, but ultimately wasn't. I can see how it could be aggravating and ultimately boring for some. I didn't find it boring at all. And while there's not a lot of depth to be had here, the movie's also not about action and cheap thrills like a Cape Fear. The only spooky scary guy lives in the main character's head.

This is the story of an extremely haunted and disturbed man. A soldier, a cop, a husband, a father, a killer. Every plot point reveals something about the character, not about what happened to the patient. To me, that's a noir-ish "whodunit" mislead. An excuse for everyone around Edward to go along with his role-playing exercise. And I think you needed to see every single vision here -- every visual and audio trigger -- to fully and ultimately understand the depths of Edward's psychosis.

I thought the performances from Leo, Michelle Williams, and Ben Kingsley were quite good. I was also struck by how good the movie looked even though it was so drab and dark. I'll have to see it again to completely understand the use of the color red at various points...

So, I would just advise anyone going in hoping for a dark and stormy mystery thriller with action and thrills and chills (and daffodils) to fall back on those expectations a little, because that's not what's here...

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