Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he's investigating.
Laura is a canonical film noir masterpiece. Its plot is ingeniously constructed, with the detective falling in love with a portrait of the supposedly dead woman — a premise that is deeply original and psychologically rich. The acting is exemplary: Gene Tierney is luminous, Dana Andrews projects world-weary obsession, and Clifton Webb delivers one of cinema's great supporting villain turns. Otto Preminger's direction and Joseph LaShelle's Oscar-winning cinematography are atmospheric and gorgeous, making exceptional use of shadow and composition. Its novelty is extraordinary — the romantic obsession with a dead woman predates and arguably surpasses similar conceits in later films. The ending, while satisfying, is the one area where the film is slightly conventional by noir standards, resolving a little too neatly and losing some of the dreamlike ambiguity the film had built.