“Out of the Blue,” directed by Neil LaBute and starring Diane Kruger and Ray Nicholson, tells the story of a young man named Connor who falls in love with an older, seductive woman named Marilyn and his life transformed into a thrilling adventure. In the story, Connor and Marilyn find each other at a very unsettling time in their lives. Connor is a young guy who is freshly out of prison for a crime he admits that he has committed, and Marilyn is an older woman who is introduced to the audience in a red, seductive dress and who also happens to be in an abusive relationship.
Once the characters are introduced, we see an immediate attraction working out between them, and they are instantly drawn towards each other. The story starts with them falling in love with each other but soon aggravates with the murder of Marilyn’s husband, which needs to occur for Connor and Marilyn to be together. In order to find happiness, it was important for them to take drastic measures to remove Marilyn’s husband from their way of being together. However, the story fails to impress us as a femme fatale, and the brilliant cast also fails to keep our attention for a longer period of time because of how the story progresses in the film. The dialogues of the film fail to get the audience’s attention, and throughout the film, normal and natural conversations are hard to find. The film gets torn between classic noirs and neo-classical noirs, as the characters align with the neo-classical noirs, but the dialogue falls into the classical tropes, and thus the film becomes an odd one to watch.
Spoilers Ahead
‘Out Of The Blue’ Story
The film starts with Marilyn taking a swim at sea, and the shirtless Connor sees her in a red swimsuit. An immediate mutual attraction develops between them. Connor lives with his mother in the basement of the house, has a record of going to prison for three years on an assault charge, works at the library, and spends his time on probation running and jogging around the coast. In the next sequence, we see that Marilyn visits Connor at his workplace, which is the library, with a bruise on her face, half covered with glasses.
From the conversation, we get to know that Marilyn is married to a wealthy businessman and has a stepdaughter, and marks on her face point out the relationship to be an abusive one. From the very moment of their interactions, we understand that Connor and Marilyn’s relationship is going to be an affair, and that brings them closer than anticipated. Within a few moments together, they confide in each other, Connor speaks about him being a convicted fellow and on probation, and Marilyn confides in him about how her husband is abusive towards her and her stepdaughter Astrid. The limited time that they can spend with each other brings them together both emotionally and physically, and that soon escalates to the murder of the rich businessman as a solution for them to be together.
With time, Connor starts to feel protective about Marilyn, and the abuses she receives start to affect him as well. His desire to be with her increases by the day. From Connor’s colleague at the library, Kim, he gets to know that Marilyn’s stepdaughter Astrid is dating a local older playboy named Jared. Kim also seems to like Connor, but her feelings go unrecognized as Connor is head over heels in love with Marilyn. With time, Connor feels the urge to save Marilyn and Astrid from their tormentor and offers to kill Marilyn’s husband in order to be with her and save them both. And thus, the planning started: Marilyn would take Astrid on a trip, and Connor would go to their house and kill her husband. But the final task of killing the husband did not go as he had hoped.
On the specific day of killing the husband, Connor goes out on a date with his colleague Kim to create an alibi and then goes on to Marilyn’s house to execute his task. Initially he was not able to find anyone in the house, but later the rich businessman comes in drunk, and a fight breaks out between them. The husband won the fight and was about to shoot Connor but was immediately hammered by another guy, Jared, who happened to be Astrid’s boyfriend. All of these seem to be big coincidences; Connor did not want to take the risk and shot Jared down, making the crime scene look like the husband and Jared killed each other.
‘Out Of The Blue’ Ending Explained – Does Connor Get Caught?
For a few days following the event, Connor gets a call from Marilyn, who listens to the events of the night instead of texting him, as she was supposed to do. Connor does not behaves properly with her over the phone as she does not listen to him, and such activities can put them in jail, which Connor does not wish to happen. Marilyn, as well as the audience, seems to get confused with the behavior of Connor and also question Marilyn’s decision about calling instead of texting when Connor repeatedly tells her to drop a text message on the phone.
For the next few days, Connor meets with his probationary officer and stays low, hoping to meet with Marilyn as soon as possible, but instead of Marilyn, he is met with his fate and finds his house surrounded by the police. He learned that his fingerprints were found at the house of the murder and was accused of working with Jared as a thief. His lost key chain was also found at the crime scene, which is a clear sign of betrayal on Marilyn’s end. Connor faces a difficult time comprehending the situation and gets shot by the police in an attempt to make a call.
Why Did Marilyn Betray Connor?
In the end, we get to see Marilyn’s betrayal of Connor, but the reason is unknown till the end. Marilyn comes to her stepdaughter after taking a swim in the ocean, where she is seen to be involved with Astrid romantically, and all of these events were for them to be together, not with Connor. The twist is uninteresting yet unpredictable in the end, as the amalgamation of classical noir and neo-noir does not come across properly throughout the film.