Don't go into the light... (The Others (Collectors Edition, 2 DVDs))

Member Name: x_elff_x

Product:	The Others (Collectors Edition, 2 DVDs)
Date:	26/10/01 (173 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Spooky script, Creepy camerwork, No bloodletting

Disadvantages: Slightly overcomplicated, Slightly slow to warm up, some other slight

Gather round the campfire children, for it is autumn, chill and foggy, and director Alejandro Amenabar has a tale of old to tell, of ghostly happenings and crying children and things that go bump in the night. But leave the marshmallows at home, for there is no place for sticky sentimentality here...

Grace (Nicole Kidman) is living in an elderly Jersey mansion with her children Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley) who suffer from photosensitivity meaning that exposure to light would be fatal. Although huge, the house is oppressive, the family rattle round like peas in a drum carefully locking each door before opening another to protect the children from the light and reading the bible, waiting for husband and father Charles (Christopher Eccleston) to return from the war.

One night their servants disappear, yet within days three more turn up unnannounced, the motherly Bertha Mills (played superbly by Fionnula Flanagan), Mr Tuttle (Eric Sykes turning in a neat character role, though it is difficult to shake his comic history from your mind) and the mute Lydia (Elaine Cassidy). Their arrival heralds upset as the carefully God-centric and rule-obsessed household begins to fray at the edges.

Anne claims she has seen a boy, Victor, but Grace doesn't believe her, at least not until she hears someone running around upstairs and starts hearing voices of her own. Who is opening the doors and curtains and playing the piano in her locked room, and what secrets lie in an old photograph album? Grace is a woman on the edge, her carefully ordered world is coming apart and she has no-one to turn to but her children, the strangely-knowing servants and her priest... who hasn't been seen for days.

This film is genuinely spooky. I hate horror movies, but Amenabar manages to create more of an atmosphere by the use of a clever score and some straightforward-yet-effective camerawork and effects than 30 gallons of blood and a caul
dron full of CGI could ever manage. This film hooks you on a tense line and keeps you there, occasionally jerking you into full jump out of the seat mode and rarely letting you relax. Cuddle up to your loved one, but for goodness sake don't reach out and touch them unexpectedly.

The performances are superb throughout, although poor old Christopher Eccleston barely gets a look in, which makes you wonder why he took such a small role. Kidman is wonderful as the brittle Grace - she certainly seems to have come into her own with her performances of late, perhaps the end of the Cruise era has some benefits - and both the children are thoroughly believable.

The plot is predictable to a point, but then the plot really isn't the thing. It doesn't matter if you guess at certain elements because it is the film's atmosphere and superbly written script which are the thing. The exchanges between the children are particularly well-scripted and believable, with Anne, the elder, frequently baiting up and attempting to scare her sibling, often providing moments of humour at the same time.

If I were to level any big criticism at The Others, aside from the lack of Christopher Eccleston, it would be that the story gets rather convoluted in the back quarter, attempting to overcomplicate itself, when simplicity is really its strength.

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