By: debbie lynn elias
We knew it would only be a matter of time before the studios tried to capitalize on the recent success of M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense” and start bringing haunted house mysteries and metaphysical thrillers a-la-Hitchock our way. Unfortunately for us, the timing is sooner rather than later.
Set in 1945 on Jersey, one of the Channel Islands situated between Britain and France, World War II is over. A pasty, clammy-looking young woman named Grace lives with her two small children on a large estate in a manor house shrouded in darkness and fog. Her husband, who had gone off “to fight the baddies” in the war, has not yet returned home and Grace anxiously awaits his return despite his being presumed dead for the past 1 ½ years. Her children, young Nicholas who is scared of his own shadow, and his sister, the precocious, inquisitive Anne, suffer from such a sensitivity to light that should they be exposed to anything above a dim oil lamp or candle flicker, they will die. Over-the-top, Bible-obsessed Christian that she is, Grace home schools the children in what appears to be their only subject – religion – in anticipation of Anne’s First Communion and the life hereafter with all of its various hells. Servants engaged by Grace mysteriously vanish during the night, the most recent set of which left the preceding week with such suddenness they failed to even collect their wages. In response to an advertisement for a new staff, a grandmotherly Irish woman named Mrs. Mills, her apparent gentleman friend Mr. Tuttle and the young mute Lydia appear at the door seeking employment just as suddenly as the old servants disappeared. Interestingly, the advertisement has yet to even be mailed to the paper for publication.
After sending Mr. Tuttle off to commence gardening, Grace escorts Mrs. Mills and Lydia throughout the house, explaining “the rules” as they go. When entering or exiting a room, each door must be locked before another may be opened. There is, of course, a key for each of the 50 doors in the house. Curtains must always be drawn – not due just to the children’s light sensitivity, but as a measure to ease Grace’s migraines. There is to be no noise. And above all, one must not believe any “stories” told by the children. Anne, it seems, believes in ghosts and “the others” that she claims reside in the house, using this belief to both petrify her whiney little brother and drive her non-believing tightly wound mother to the very edge of madness.
Writer/Director Alejandro Amenabar does an adequate job creating the eeriness and creepiness of a haunted house, giving us the requisite piano playing in the middle of the night, tromping and clomping of footsteps on the upper floors, opening and closing of locked doors, noises in the middle of the night (although in the dark house it could be the middle of the day for all we know), cluttered attics, seances and of course, wailing, crying and screaming (the latter of which comes primarily from Grace), but enough is enough. Although he attempts to keep the audience on pins and needles as he builds towards the climactic (and convoluted) ending-with-a-twist, Amenabar’s dialogue is weak and he pushes the envelope too far, endlessly drawing out the ghostlike occurrences at every turn, eventually losing the audience to annoyance and impatience rather than winning them with suspense and terror.
Although respectable, Nicole Kidman’s performance as Grace lacks believable paranoia and too often goes for histrionics and adult temper tantrums brought on by inquisitive children. Newcomer Alakina Mann is perfectly cast as Anne, showing the full range of a child’s emotions and manipulations, while James Bentley’s wimpy and quaking, yet innocent portrayal of Nicholas is reminiscent of Mark Lester playing Oliver Twist asking Mr. Bumble for “some more.” It is, however, veteran Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan who gives the piece de resistance performance as the seemingly kindly, yet creepy housekeeper Mrs. Mills.
“The Others” is only adequate as a spectral, psychological thriller and pales in comparison to its predecessors of the 1940’s. Amenabar is no Hitchcock and Kidman is neither Grace Kelly or Ingrid Bergman.
