"Bunny Lake" has early flickers of promise-- eccentric Brits, missing kid, anticipation of Olivier, Noël Coward and the Zombies-- but it quickly bogs down, and slows down, almost to a halt. There are a few good scenes-- creepy moments as when brother Dullea takes a bath while sister Lynley is perched on the edge of the tub. But when the climax finally comes, the only surprise is how surprisingly silly it is. After having spent the entire movie as quite a shrewd fellow, Keir Dullea abruptly regresses into a wild-eyed kidnapper in halted adolescence, a transmogrification that happens in one ill-lit scene which builds into a sequence that drags on, and on, and on, even worse than this sentence. While we wait for the predictable Olivier ex machina and his Scotland Yard cops, Lynley frantically distracts her nutty regressed brother with children's games so he won't harm her missing daughter.
Oh, yes, Bunny is real. She's been napping peacefully in his car trunk all day (this movie is stupider than anything by M. Night Shyamalan, I promise you), and when she's lifted free, she doesn't so much as shed a tear, let alone a traumatic scream. I'd have forgiven her if she'd come at the adults with a tire iron. But no. Unflappable urchin that she is, she doesn't even ask, "Why did you lock me in the trunk, Uncle Steve?" Four-year-olds can talk, I've heard them. Not this one. She's pure prop.
The combined forces of silk-smooth Olivier and scenery-chewing Noël Coward could not save this celluloid debacle. The only reason to see it is to help correct the lingering impression that Otto Preminger was a competent filmmaker. I normally reserve low scores (1, 2) for badly made AND badly conceived films, but this one is a bottom-dweller on the sheer force of its stupidity.
Oh, yes, Bunny is real. She's been napping peacefully in his car trunk all day (this movie is stupider than anything by M. Night Shyamalan, I promise you), and when she's lifted free, she doesn't so much as shed a tear, let alone a traumatic scream. I'd have forgiven her if she'd come at the adults with a tire iron. But no. Unflappable urchin that she is, she doesn't even ask, "Why did you lock me in the trunk, Uncle Steve?" Four-year-olds can talk, I've heard them. Not this one. She's pure prop.
The combined forces of silk-smooth Olivier and scenery-chewing Noël Coward could not save this celluloid debacle. The only reason to see it is to help correct the lingering impression that Otto Preminger was a competent filmmaker. I normally reserve low scores (1, 2) for badly made AND badly conceived films, but this one is a bottom-dweller on the sheer force of its stupidity.
