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View Date: Aug 11, 2001 Cast:
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The Others Two years ago, The Sixth Sense turned the movie world on its ear in more ways then it could have ever imagined. What was at first a sleeper success story with a zinger ending, has turned into a measuring stick for movies trying to shock us as we leave the theater, and a bookmark for supernatural suspense stories. With the recent lack of great suspense movies, The Others was definitely a welcome addition to the calendar, but unfortunately, director Alejandro Amenabar (Open Your Eyes) taps too much into the few successes that there have been, adding a few touches, but in the ending falling prey to pacing and borrowed ideas which are copied rather than influential. By coming in on the heels and ideals of other successes Amenabar invokes the spirits of some modern horror and suspense classics as inspiration in this tale. It has the style and mood of 1980’s Ghost Story, some attitudes and plot ideas from Poltergeist, but the majority of the tale obviously comes from Sense. It is the attempt to live up to that final inspiration that ultimately dooms The Others, because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but in order to succeed and be set apart, there must be some original touches. After a laborious set up, the film stumbles in the last third, leaving a bored, empty feeling as the final emotion, where fear, suspense and wonderment should have been. Kidman is a war widow living with her two children in the isolated island of Jersey in the English Channel. She is poster child of paranoid and overprotective, sheltering her children from light, due to their allergy to it, and sheltering them from society and modern conveniences for similar fears and reasons. She hires on three servants who appear mysteriously, to help her maintain the large estate that her husband has left her. So far, so good, but of course there is more going on here. You see, they aren’t alone in the house, the oldest daughter is the only one who sees the visitors, subsequently scaring her younger brother with the tales and earning a punishment from her mother for having such a wild imagination. I leave the unveiling of the remainder of this tale for the film to do, suffice to say that the film proceeds at a pace which robs it of any pent up suspense. The use of the children as the vehicles of that which some cannot see is a very good premise that Sense mastered, and this one piggy backs on. The mind of a child is innocent and uncorrupted, but always open and imaginative. It is these conflicting styles which make the young, perfect vehicles for tales of the unexpected or unbelievable. Here, the kids are the perfect foils, one who displays the fear, the other displaying the steadfast belief that children so openly have. This works in the films favor for most of the time, but also is let down as the film drags on. The scenes meant to shock or scare, actually just snap the audience out of the hypnotic catharsis that they have been lulled into. There is such a thing as methodical building of suspense which Shyamalan mastered in Sense, but Amenabar's sophomore effort has missed it slightly here. Had he compacted things together a bit, and sharpened the edges, the ending could have been forgivable, since its very hard these days to shock or scare audiences. I do admire the attempts though, but the bar is very high. I was very leery of Kidman doing this role, since she has yet to prove to me that she can handle a film where she is the main focus or has most of the screen time (To Die For for instance). After Moulin Rouge, which was a combination of Luhrmann’s vision and Kidman’s playful beauty, she shows the other emotion which she does well, paranoid fear (Dead Calm, for example). She is manic, frustrated, very typically parental, and takes us with her on the downward spiral, as things start falling apart and coming together at the same time. It’s amazing to see someone so composed, yet confused, and Kidman helps keep the doldrums tolerable, but not quite watchable, as the film languishes towards the end. The remainder of the cast is composed of her children who hold their own very well and the servants, an old woman who does the majority of the speaking, an old man along for the ride, and a mute young girl who obviously just reacts. They are there, like the visitors, to progress the story, but Kidman is the true shining star amidst everything else. Ultimately, The Others is a movie that has all the right ideas and inspirations, but fails in execution and conclusion. The vision is stylish and haunting, the acting, from Kidman, the children and the housekeepers, is intense and mysterious, but the pace of the film dilutes the fear factor, and the conclusion, while a tad unexpected, cannot live up to its own chilling precursory intentions. Amenabar shows potential in his visual ideas and interpretations and with some honing and editing could be a definite voice in the future. For now, his effort is a lot of style and some borrowed substance which is delivered to the audience in an eyedropper Chinese water torture style which kills what could have been a film that others drew ideas from, rather than one that mirrors them. ($$ out of $$$$$)Agree? Disagree, Questions? Comments? |
