by Frank Wilkins
There's nothing I dislike more than the over-produced, CGI-abused fright movie. Movies that attempt to tap into our sense of terror with artificially produced stimuli usually do nothing more than give us a few starts, make $20 million at the box office and then ride off into the sunset of DVD rental eternity. However, the select few movies that are able to build upon Alfred Hitchcock's idea that terror and fear is more effective when manifested in one's own mind, are the one's that generate the public buzz and ultimately go down as truly genuine representatives of the horror/thriller genre. The Others is one of these.
Nicole Kidman stars as Grace, a young woman raising two adolescent children on the British isle of Jersey in post-World War II England. Her children, Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley) suffer from a rare but debilitating sickness that causes severe allergic reactions when they are exposed to sunlight. Grace must keep the curtains drawn at all times and insists on locking one door behind her before opening the next in front. Naturally, this sets a creepy atmosphere with locked rooms lit by oil lamps and candles that cast eerie shadows on the curtain-drawn walls. Our imagination becomes hyperactive as we hear sounds just off camera's eye and we see open doors and curtains that were closed just moments before.
A trio of servants is soon hired to help Grace take care of the creaky old mansion while she awaits the return of her husband, Charles (Christopher Eccleston), from the front lines in France. An immediate unease hovers over the estate as we begin to realize that something is not quite right with these servants. It seems as if they are hiding secrets that we are never quite able discover. Perfect casting here creates a truly ominous triumvirate of characters, lead by the deceptively warm grandmother-like Mrs. Mills (Fionnula Flanagan). Erik Sykes as Mr. Tuttle and Elaine Cassidy as the mute Lydia, round out the strange threesome.
Grace is very devoted to her children and goes to extreme measures to protect them. But she is also very fragile and seems to always be on the verge of a nervous breakdown, a condition made worse by the presence of the servants. Grace feels as if her tendencies are being judged, causing her to become uneasy with the bond created between her daughter and Mrs. Mills.
Strange things begin to happen around the house. Loud noises rustle upstairs, the piano plays although no one is in the room and Anne begins to mention her encounters with a young boy, Victor, who is invisible to everyone else. Soon the disturbances become too obvious to ignore and tensions begin to mount as Grace blames the occurrences on the servants.
Many twists and surprises are in store as director/writer Alejandro Amenábar pours on the suspense in this stylishly horrific ghost-tale that requires us to dig down deep into the recesses of our innate sense of survival. Of course, a movie that relies on such nuance and imagination to reach our senses depends more heavily on strong performances. Kidman is near perfect as the unflappable mother who resists the notions of the supernatural. I'm talking Oscar® caliber here – she's that good! The children run through their paces with a seemingly graceless and wooden demeanor that at first seems out of place when compared to the charming and buoyant Haley Joel Osment of Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense.
Amenábar does occasionally resort to some cheap scare tactics like loud noises and sudden camera jerks, but he mostly utilizes sinister atmosphere to play upon our own imaginations. The Others is a truly haunting theater-of-the-mind that messes with your head and dredges up your most primal fears. It's about what we don't see rather than what we do.
Frank Wilkins
The Others (2001)
