Initial Impressions

As seen on my Letterboxd. I write these excerpts right after viewing, though sometimes it takes a while for my thoughts to form fully.

The dialogue and its delivery are fantastic and Bogart and Grahame sold their characters incredibly well. It's less of a murder mystery than you'd might expect, and I think the focus on the characters instead of trying to push that plot was an effective decision. The issue was, despite an intriguing start and tense end, the middle of the movie failed to establish any doubt in my mind that love could triumph over Steele's abuse; I remained fully prejudiced against him and skeptical of his relationship with Gray the entire film. I realize that the screentime is fairly compressed, mirroring well the short timeframe of the emerging affair, but truthfully the middle felt pretty one-dimensional, which is such a shame given the end.

A More Thorough Look

In a Lonely Place presents a fascinating subversion of noir conventions, prioritizing character study over its murder mystery premise. It appeared as a mature understanding of the noir genre while attempting to overcome its typical constraints.

While watching, I found myself consciously enjoying the "sharp" (according to my internal monologue) dialogue. It crackles with wit and underlying menace; Bogart and Grahame totally nailed it. Their performances fully embody their characters' complexities - Bogart especially brings a volatile danger to Dixon Steele that feels eerily unnerving, having only seen him as the stoic Rick Blaine in Casablanca.

However, pacing issues in the middle act somewhat undermine the overall composition. While the compressed timeline of the central relationship works conceptually, mirroring the whirlwind nature of the affair, I felt that it lacks sufficient development to make the emotional stakes feel fully realized. The immersion slowly lost its grip on me by failing to create genuine ambiguity about Steele's character. Despite the strong chemistry between Bogart and Grahame, the development of their relationship lacks the complexity needed to maintain credibility. There's a lot to be praised, in any film, about the unsaid and unshown– the inferred– but ultimately you've got to show something! We got a got a glimpse of tension from Laurel after Dix's proposition to her, but it quickly spiraled into unconditional infatuation.

Worse, I felt that I was never given sufficient reason to hope love might triumph over Steele's abusive tendencies, making the central conflict feel one-dimensional despite the strength of the performances. This flattening of emotional complexity in the middle acts is particularly disappointing given the sophistication of the film's opening and closing sequences. The compressed timeline, while thematically appropriate, ends up feeling more like a shortcut around character development than an artistic choice that serves the story. What remains is a technically accomplished noir that demonstrates moments of brilliance but ultimately falls short of its ambitious vision to transcend genre conventions through character study.

Verdict

The film's strongest elements - its performances, dialogue, and technical execution - can't quite overcome the emotional shortcuts taken in its crucial middle section. I really wanted to love it! But it just narrowly missed.