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Review by Susan Granger
3½ stars out of 4
"No door is to be opened before the previous one is closed and
locked," instructs Grace (Nicole Kidman), as mistress of a mysterious mansion on
the remote British island of Jersey. It's 1945 and she's waiting for her husband
(Christopher Eccleston) to return from fighting the Germans in France in W.W.II.
But the war is over and she hasn't heard from him. Plus the servants have left,
departing in the middle of the night, only to be replaced by three strangers who
appear on her doorstep looking for work. But it seems Mrs. Mills (Fionnula
Flanagan), Mr. Tuttle (Eric Sykes) and the mute Lydia (Elaine Cassidy) worked in
the mansion, years ago, for previous owners. "My children are allergic to
light," Grace continues. "The curtains and shutters must always be drawn."
Without electricity, they exist in almost total darkness and within this
macabre, claustrophobic atmosphere, bizarre things start to happen. There are
strange sounds and ghoulish apparitions, indicating intruders, which terrify
Grace and her children (Alakina Mann, James Bentley) but, oddly, not the
servants. "Sooner or later, they will find you," Mrs. Mills murmurs. "I don't
like fantasies," the stressed-out Grace snaps, relying, instead, on her devout
Catholicism. By Spanish writer/director/composer Alejandro Amenabar ("Open Your
Eyes"), this is a sinister, old-fashioned ghost story in which nothing is as it
seems. Suspense is created, not by special effects, but by the rising tension
and all-encompassing fog. Resembling a young Grace Kelly, Nicole Kidman captures
Kelly's combination of icy volatility and vulnerability which made her
irresistible to Alfred Hitchcock. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "The
Others" is a shivery, spooky, scary 8, a suspenseful, brain-twisting
chiller-thriller, reminiscent of "The Sixth Sense."
Copyright © 2001 Susan Granger
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out of 4
