The Raven - 2011

I liked this film, and it made me want to reread Poe :-)
It starts with some writing on the screen "On October 7, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe was found, near death, on a park bench in Baltimore, Maryland. The last days of his life remains a mystery" so I guess this is their version of what might have happened :-)
Poe (John Cusack) has no money and is terribly annoyed that because of this he doesn't get the appreciation he fells he deserves. Only a French man in a bar full of people shows to know his poem "The raven", before some men throw him out. Him=Poe, I mean, not the French.
When people start getting murdered in ways that resembles very much what he wrote in his stories, the inspector, Detective Fields (Luke Evans) asks for his opinions, but when Poe's love interest Emily (Alice Eve) is abducted, Poe dedicates himself to find her, to save her.
Big spoilers from now on, in case you wanna know.
 He's challenged, he's given clues that bring him to the next body, and he has to write new stories. He writes a new one, but when it comes the time to write another, he's growing desperate. Emily's the only good thing in his life, and he's nowhere near to find her. He writes using his own name, writing that Poe, having failed so far to save his love, has but one last chance: offer his life in exchange for her. Next day at home he receives a sort of 'invitation': an obvious clue to tell him where to go to find his murderer, for the end he himself chose for the story. He goes and he's surprised to see that it was all Ivan Reynolds' doing, his typesetter and admirer. He had always showed to admire his work, and lately Poe had been unable to write anything new. Still, do not think that Poe's story made him do it, that would be ridiculous, if you don't have inside what it takes to become a murderer you don't change because you watched a movie or read a book filled with violence. Insufferable excuses, is what they are. No, here Ivan (Sam Hazeldine) makes it pretty clear when he says that his first murder was probably his own father. Reynolds then gives Poe a poison to drink and  leaves. Poe drinks it to keep his part of the deal, his end of the story, and in return he's told that Emily is exactly there, where he is. He searches for her, finds her buried and saves her. When help arrives, he leaves, knowing she'll be okay, and sits on a bench. WHY? Well, this is the point they could not explain with their version of the story. Poe had absolutely no reason to go away from them; on the contrary, he should have stayewd and he should have told himself who the murderer was to the inspector. That would have been the reasonable thing to do, to make sure. Instead, he sits on a bench because that's where the real Poe was found, apparently.
He's found and brought to the hospital, apparently ranting, repeating "tell Fields his name is Reynolds". After his death, the doctor tells Fields "he wanted to tell you that your name is Reynolds".  :-/ But Fields is not stupid and won't let it go. He'll find Reynolds and he'll kill him, because this is the only happy ending the audience can get, and we want it.
A few words more : Emily's father is played by Brendan Gleeson :-) and the bartender at the beginning of the book is Brendan Coyle, the John Bates I love in Downton Abbey :-)