The Others (2001)

There's a song by an Italian rapper which spoils the ending of some of the films with the most shocking twists. I love that song but it spoiled several films for me —The Sixth Sense, The Prestige, The Game (which I'm yet to see), and The Others. This is the reason I've been putting off this film, hoping that I would eventually forget about the twist. I realised that, unless I hit my head really hard, I will never forget it so I finally watched it. 

Set around the end of WWII, the film follows Grace Stewart (Nicole Kidman) and her two children, Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley), who are both allergic to sunlight. They live alone in a mansion on a British isle as the husband and father (Christopher Eccleston) is yet to return from the war and the housekeepers have mysteriously vanished. Suddenly, three friendly caretakers, an old lady, Mrs. Mills (Fionnula Flanagan), a mute young girl, Lydia (Elaine Cassidy), and a gardener, Mr. Tuttle (Eric Sykes), arrive, strange events occur and Grace begins to question her sanity.

It's a simple ghost story that manages to build up mystery and suspense and differentiates from most ghost stories because of the twist at the end. However, because of its simplicity, it's a story easy to figure out as it soon becomes obvious that the new housekeepers are ghosts and therefore Grace and her children are too, and it gets boring, almost excruciating to sit through the film waiting for the twist which, by the way, is brilliantly delivered and shocked me even though I knew it was coming. Also, what's up with the subplot about Grace's husband? Am I the only one who didn't get the reason for him appearing and disappearing like that? To me, he felt unnecessary as he has no impact whatsoever on the plot. 

Considering how slowly the plot develops, I was expecting the characters to have more depth. Unfortunately, with the only exception of Grace, I found them to be pretty one dimensional. I didn't feel much for them, I simply didn't care for them. 

The cast, however, does a wonderful job. Nicole Kidman gives a very strong performance as Grace Stewart, a religious, over-protective mother on the edge of sanity. Not only she nails the English accent, but she also conveys an incredible array of emotions and the hint of psychotic hysteria in her eyes is just unbelievable. Fionnula Flanagan is fantastic and creepy as hell as Mrs. Mills and Alakina Mann is terrific as Anne, the stubborn daughter who keeps seeking dead people.

Warner Sogefilms, Dimension Films, Mars Distribution, Lucky Red

While Alejandro Amenábar's script didn't fully convince me, his direction worked much better for me. He was able to deliver the same dark, eerie, haunting atmosphere from start to finish through the dark lighting, the brilliant cinematography and camera angles, the thrilling musical score, and the fantastic settings. In other words, The Others isn't the type of film that needs special effects or gore to give you the creeps, and thankfully it doesn't have either of those.