Directed by - Alajandro Amenabar
Starring - Nicole Kidman, Alakina Mann, James Bentley, Fionnula Flanagan, Eric Sykes, Elaine Cassidy, Christopher Eccleston
Length - 101 minutes
I first heard about The Others from a friend of mine in the US who asked if I had heard of it. I said no. She said that she had seen ads on TV about it and that she really wanted to watch it, but it wasn’t showing at her local cinema. Later when she heard that it had made a new entry at the US box office at number 4 she thought that it was rubbish simply because it didn’t get to number 1. Yes, she’s one of ’’those’’ kinds of people that think like that! I’m not really sure if there’s even a name for people like that (judges-movie-by-statistics person?), but if anyone knows then please pass on the knowledge. What she said though made me want to know more about The Others. I guess I wanted to try prove her wrong!
I downloaded a trailer and after viewing it I then began to get really interested.
Set in 1945, during the backdrop of the Second World War, the overly religious Grace (A ’’God she looks so thin’’ Nicole Kidman) and her two children Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicolas (James Bentley) have retired to a mansion in Jersey. While there, Grace waits for her husband Charles (Christopher Eccleston) to return from the war. There’s a lot to do around the house so Grace hires three servants, led by Mrs Bertha Mills (Fionnula Flanagan). Things are made difficult by the fact that Grace’s children suffer from a weird disease. Their skin will blister if they come in contact with strong light, namely sunlight. So Grace sets a few rules. Whichever room the children are in the curtains must obviously be closed and (this next one is just great) only one door in the house can remain open at any one time. Things start getting really strange though when it appears that someone is breaking these rules. Also Grace’s daughter Anne starts telling weird stories and the servants seem to know more then they’re telling.
I couldn’t have watched The Others at a more perfect time - October 31st (Halloween!). But while the timing was right it wasn’t the greatest of movie going experiences. Before the movie had even started there was popcorn all over floor. Once it did start there was a flood of latecomers and while the movie was on some idiot thought they’d shine a red laser light on the screen every couple of minutes (am I to believe that there’s some stupid idiots out there who’ll spend money to ruin a movie for everyone else?). Also the movie started with a very strong hiss in the background meaning that the sound quality wasn’t up to scratch (not sure if this is a fault with the movie or the cinema).
Still, The Others has its many strong points. The evolving story is one of them. As the story progressed, faults in sound and stupid red lights on the screen didn’t matter to me that much because I was so involved and captivated as to what was going on and what was going to happen next. Small things in the movie such as spooky whisperings and faint crying lead to even bigger things and the audience are just as clueless as the main character Grace. This sustained my interest.
The performances are of a very high standard. And I don’t just mean from a few of the actors but from just about everyone. Nicole Kidman is on fine form here as her character franticly tries to keep her children alive while making one discovery after another. I wouldn’t be surprised if her role earns her an Oscar nomination. The two children Alakina Mann and James Bentley must have gone to the Haley Joel Osment school of acting because I really can’t fault them at all, especially since this is their first movie outing. They bring out a mixture of the fun, mysterious and innocent. Fionnula Flanagan as the servant Bertha Mills is very much in control whenever she’s on the screen, while the other two servants Lydia (played by a mute Elaine Cassidy) and Mr Tuttle (Eric Sykes) don’t really have a lot of screen time and simply add to an already eerie feeling. If there’s anyone who is slightly out of place though then it’s Christopher Eccleston as Charles. I felt that his arrival disrupted the flow of the movie and made for a slightly disjointed middle. I began to wonder if his character was even necessary. He does serve a purpose (think hard now) and is definitely a talking point after leaving the cinema.
Now there aren’t really any special effects in this movie. But one effect I did like (and I don’t think many will really pay attention to this) was the use of lighting. Because of the children’s condition you know there’s going to be plenty of scenes in the dark. Lanterns light rooms and give of this warm glow about the place, especially on the characters faces that are partially lit by the flame of a lantern. Light shines through the openings of curtains and also creeps from under doors. I just thought it looked great!
It might not be so much of a horror movie or a shocker (if you want basement monsters and blood then you want Jeepers Creepers) but there are the odd few moments that’ll make you jump. I myself would class this as supernatural ghost story. However there there isn’t really a lot of offensive material in here. No flesh ripping off of decomposing bodies, no foul mouths and no gratuitous sex scenes. This might be quite a plus for parents who’d like to take their youngsters to enjoy a classy ghost story.
The Others wasn’t one the highest earners of 2001 but it’s one movie that’ll definitely be listed as one of the best. It has a lot of fun at playing with your fear of things you can’t actually see. There have been quite a few movies with similar ideas and styles and The Others borrows heavily from them. Many will make comparisons with The Sixth Sense, but The Others goes one step further. As the final credits started to role I realised that writer/director Alajandro Amenabar had told a story different than the one I was originally expecting.
Maybe I should change that world ’’different’’ to the word ’’better’’!
Points of Interest:
The Others was made on a budget of $17 million.
The Others spent nine weeks in the US Top Ten. Six of those weeks were spent inside the top five.
So far it has earned over $95 million in the US alone
Nicole Kidman divorced from her then husband Tom Cruise (who also executive produced the movie) while The Others was undergoing editing.
Nicole Kidman originally asked director Alejandro Amenabar to give the role of Grace to someone else as she felt she couldn’t handle the role and felt like wanting to walk away. Not because of Tom Cruise but because she had just come off of filming Moulin Rouge and felt like wanting to make love stories and musicals.