Out of Blue
The hunt for a killer draws a detective into an even larger mystery: the nature of the universe itself. Mike Hoolihan (Patricia Clarkson) is an unconventional New Orleans cop investigating the murder of renowned astrophysicist Jennifer Rockwell (Mamie Gummer), a black hole expert found shot to death in her observatory. (h/t Out Of Blue press release.)
Out of Blue
As Mike tumbles down the rabbit hole of the disturbing, labyrinthine case, she finds herself grappling with increasingly existential questions of quantum mechanics, parallel universes, and exploding stars—cosmic secrets that may hold the key to unraveling the crime, while throwing into doubt her very understanding of reality. (h/t Out of Blue press release)
Out of Blue
‘I researched Out of Blue by hanging out in homicide departments,’ said director Carol Morely. ‘I was haunted by how unoccupied the big communal office spaces often were and how one department saved on energy by keeping the overhead lights off, so it became lit by an array of lamps brought from home.’
Out of Blue
‘This was something I just had to include in the film,’ director Carol Morley said. ‘I became attuned to the personalities of the detectives, to the sounds around them, to how much paperwork they did, to the way they responded and were shaped by their brutal, crime-riddled world. To how night drifted into day and day into night.’
Out of Blue
‘My mind was opened up to so much I didn’t know as I spent time in observatories and gleaned all I could from scientists in different fields,’ said director Carol Morley. ‘I was oddly comforted to discover that we all come from stardust, and therefore are all biologically connected to each other. I began to see my characters as a constellation of stars, as I became drawn into the mysteries of their universe and their minds.’
Out of Blue
‘Embedded into Detective Mike Hoolihan’s investigation, that I ultimately reveal to be an investigation into herself,’ the director added, ‘are some of my discoveries about quantum physics, cosmology and psychology.’
Out of Blue
‘As the film starts out, I wanted Mike’s world to feel familiar, like a standard police procedural, and then to travel far from that, into the realms of the unexplained and the inner self, and become another kind of mystery. I love the idea of the audience finding themselves in Mike’s position, looking for clues anywhere and everywhere, as they inhabit her tangled web of uncertainty,’ the director added.
