The review of The Oval Portrait (2025) by Edgar Allan Poe: Film Festival HP Lovecraft Cinemax
Intensity: 🩸 On 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Adrian Langley
Written by Adrian Langley and Edgar Allan Poe
The oval portrait of Edgar Allan Poe is an adaptation of one of the shortest works in Poe. He visits the intersection where life, art and death collided. History is brought to modern times, where a thief, an artist and an art dealer are all attracted by the influence of a spirit linked to a remarkable portrait. As is the tradition of translations of Poe’s stories, the film is properly melancholy, but it injects humor welcome into the procedure, while maintaining the central theme of the original history.
The oval portrait only lasts a few pages, but it behaves in a memorable message. In this document, the narrator is an injured man who is preparing in an old abandoned manor who has kept his considerable art collection. Cacheter in the corner is a remarkable portrait of a beautiful girl, at the dawn of femininity. He discovered a newspaper of the artist, who sought to perfectly capture the image of his young wife. He succeeds, but at a significant cost, when he becomes more in love with the portrait than his real wife. As he finished painting the portrait, his young woman died.
Originally, this story was published under the name of “Life is Death” in 1842, which was a description on the nose. The oval portrait influenced the portrait of Dorian Gray. The two stories explore the loss and reflection of the life and death of the portrait. Paintings are works of art involved, much more than a simple photograph. Portraits require patience and special attention, and memorable those capture timeless moments.
If the film had adopted a direct approach, it would have been a very short film, not a feature film. Langley added layers and depth to the news by connecting the woman’s mind to haunt the painting. The loss haunts all the newly added characters. Bummers all around! A satisfactory and redemptor intrigue binds these themes and links the extended story of the film.
The casting of the oval portrait of Edgar Allan Poe
- Pragya Shail plays Ava, a young artist who has trouble finding a career worthy of his artistic talents.
- Michael Swatton plays Whitlock, a merchant of antiques and CuriOSS who sells his pieces by appointment only. In his collection is the oval portrait.
- Paul Thomas plays Julian, an art thief who does not like to get his hands dirty. He relies on the hired muscle to make the real break and entry.
- Louisa Capulet plays Gora, the woman in the board, now a ghost.
- Simon Phillips plays Grayson, the man who hired Julian, and lacks patience following multiple unsuccessful attempts to acquire painting.
A synopsis of the oval portrait
A burglar is divided into a basement window of an old brick building. It is an antiquity store, and its collection of antiques are not protected by burglary alarms or any kind of detection. The PROWLER finds its target, a portrait, covered by a sheet. When he reveals the room, an obsessive image of a young woman, returned to a precision close to life, a silhouette emerges behind him. The portrait ghost stifles the life of the potential thief. In the morning, Whitlock discovers the body, holds it below and encourages it in the furnace.
We are then presented in Ava, which is about to have a horrible day. His boyfriend throws Ava at the library. Then, she heads for work, only to discover that she was released from the artistic publication where she had done an internship. Printed journalism is no longer a profitable company, and now Ava is unemployed. She gathers her losses, shrugging them and her mother’s shoulders and investigations, determined to rekindle her dormant artistic career. Ava is looking for a place to get a bridge and discover the Whitlock store nearby. She made an appointment once she learns that he has an easel to sell.
The disappearance of the man he sent to recover the mystifies portrait Julian. After Grayson threatened to have stalled, he finds another bagman to recover the painting, being too loose to do it himself. Ava, after meeting the graceful and sad Whitlock, becomes fascinated by his face. Gora’s ghost takes over this attraction and followed Ava in jealous curiosity.
The ghost is in motion, just like the next burglary attempt. The destinies will collide and Whitlock is the key to all the mystery.
Assessment
This little independent British film has a dark sweetness on this subject. The main story of a painting made of erroneous love and the desire to define things carries all the characteristics of a dark Gothic romance. Swatton plays its role with Grace. He is polite and kind, but he also carries the burden of huge secrets. It is much more than it seems, with a deeply personal link with the portrait. Shail is our narrative center and the public point of view. The resilience of Ava to his situation The attack on Whitlock, and the link between them is endearing, although it also increases the anger of Gora.
Paul Thomas excels as a loss loser with a flight fence. It provides pathetic comic relief to what would otherwise be a very solid story. I found myself rooted for this sad bag, because each attempt on the portrait falls flat. The deep background of the Grayson desires for the portrait remains somewhat unresolved, and at the end of the film, the motivations of the robberies looked like an impassive red herring.
Unsurprisingly, this film burns at a slow pace. It’s Poe, after all. If you are a fan of lyrical Gothic tales, you will like this film. Ghost Story fans will also appreciate this work. However, horror fans who love their ghost stories with the blood and the horror of the body should seek elsewhere. I appreciate the stories of ghosts emotionally linked, and it did not disappoint.
Final reflections:
If you are a fan of the interpretations of Corman Era Poe from the 1960s, you will be at home here. It is not a period story, however, it is therefore not a costume drama. This strikes the same tones, however. Read the news. This will inform you of the background, without spoiling anything. Certainly, the language is dense of the 19th century, but it is a quick reading. The film is not classified, but would probably win a PG-13 note. Violence and ghostly encounters frightened little children, but adolescents should be very good. This film presented itself at the Lovecraft 2025 HP film festival and will be released on October 10 at limited theatrical release and streaming.
Review by Eric Li
