I don’t usually review films or books. However, I just watched “Still Life”, based on Louise Penny‘s first novel of the same name. Set in Three Pines, Quebec (fictional, of course).
First, a little about author Louise Penny: She was born on July 1, 1958 (which makes her 55 years old), in outside a small village south of Montreal.
Penny is a Canadian mystery author, most notably for her series of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec. Still Life went into television production late in 2012, with British actor Nathaniel Parker cast as Chief Inspector Gamache. By the by, Nathaniel Parker is better known as Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley, of the The Inspector Lynley Mysteries series.
She entered her first novel at “Debut Dagger” (competition in the United Kingdom). She placed second out of 800 entries. Not surprising, the novel also won other awards, such as the “New Blood” Dagger award in the United Kingdom, the Arthur Ellis Award in Canada for best first crime novel, the Dilys Award, the Anthony Award as well as the Barry Award for Best First Novel in the U.S. Very impressive.
She has published another seven novels, receiving many major crime novel awards!
Secondly, the movie Still Life: A Three Pines Mystery: What a quality movie! It’s been a long time since I have watched a two-hour movie that made it seem like a 45-minute show. The screenplay was written by Wayne Grigsby and directed by Peter Moss. It was filmed in Standbridge East, Quebec.
There were only two points that I found annoying in the film. The first is that the seal on the Police Station door clearly said “Sécurité du Québec.”
The second was that although I really enjoy Nathaniel Parker in any role, it did bother me that he had an English accent when pronouncing his name, Armand Gamache. In the film he did allude to the reason he had an English accent, was because he studied in England and picked it up. I can understand that. However, I can’t buy that he also picked up the accent for his name. I know I’m nit-picking here, and I’m sorry about that. These two points aside, everything else was done with a quality that make me proud to be Canadian.
To learn more about Louise Penny, you can’t get anything better than her Official Website; and to learn more about the movie, I would first suggest CBC, PDM Entertainment‘s press release, and Internet Movie Database (IMDB).
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