There is no way I can do justice to this film without revealing the plot. So if you want to see this film and dont want to know everything about it, do not read this review. In the next few paras, we’re going to analyse this movie to the core.
Well, now that you have ignored my warnings, and are reading this inspite of not having seen the movie, lets quickly take you through the basics. Nicole Kidman is Grace Stewart. Grace lives in an old house on the isle of Jersey. she has two adorable kids, a boy and a girl. The girl is slightly older than the boy, perhaps she might be 10 (?), while the boy is about 8 (?).
Anyway, her husband has gone to war quite a while ago, and has been presumed dead. Her kids have a disease, they are sensitive to light, hence no sunlight can be allowed to enter the house, and everything is in candlelight, which is about as much as they can bear.
In a nutshell, this is a movie which is classier than the sixth sense, with the same concept. (I am dead, and I dont know it). But its different in a sense, because there’s a very clever trick played on the audience by the filmmakers.
The audience assumes the ghosts to be real (just like the sixth sense). Hence, we assume Nicole Kidman and her kids to be real. Well then, who the hell are the ’’ghosts’’ they keep seeing? aaah.. this is the clever part.. who can they be? Why, they’re normal people, just like you and me!! And in fact, a repeated watching of the movie will confirm that although never quite clearly shown, these normal people are petrified of the ghosts they keep hearing!
There are lots of complexities to cast doubts on the cleverer viewers who try to guess whats going on. For example, there are two scenes in this movie where Grace’s girl clearly shows a hint of a split personality. Or rather, scenes where the audience can think that she does. One is when the girl looks at herself in the mirror, and asks ’’Monsieur, would you like to dance’’ and answers in a different voice ’’id love to’’, and begins to dance in front of the mirror.
An intelligent viewer, who is expected to take this bait, is expected to think of a previous scene, when the girl woke up her brother to tell him about a ’’ghost’’ who kept opening the curtains. In that scene, the audience heard a different voice, but never saw the ghost that the girl was talking about, and in fact, when the ’’ghosts’’ hand touches the boy’s cheek to prove that its real, the girl was not in the scene. Room for doubt, always room for doubt.
Lets find out here, what has actually happened. Well, it so happened that long before the start of the movie, Grace went mad, due to her kids condition, the social isolation (no electricity, no phone), and her husbands continued absense, probable death. She suffocated her kids, and shot herself with a gun.
She used to have servants, while she and the kids were alive. But they ’’disappeared’’ overnight without even taking their wages. Well, what do you expect, with such a thing happening in the house!! Grace knows that she once tried to do something horrible to her kids, but it so happened that after she killed herself, she felt nothing, heard her kids laughing in the other room, and thought, well the good lord has given me another chance! And then spent the rest of the whole movie trying to figure out ’’why did the servants disappear overnight?’’.
So, now you might appreciate a scene in which she hears a piano playing at night. (whos playing it? why, the new tenants, of course! ). She goes quietly to the door of the room, opens the door softly. The piano stops playing. We feel its very ghostly! In retrospect, what has happened? Well, whoever was playing the piano was spooked by the door opening by itself! HE was the one who slammed the door on her face, getting psyched out by the door repeatedly creaking and opening slightly! What a concept! Same applies for Victor, the kid that Grace’s kids keep seeing.. more than them, its easy to guess that it was Victor who was the most frightened, knowing that in fact, HE was the one seeing the ghosts!
Clues to this overall situation? Quite a few in the movie. first of all, there’s a couple of times when the girl (Anne), says ’’ghosts go about in white sheets!!’’ . Well, look at what Nicole Kidman wears throughout the movie. White! Only White! More clues.. there is one awesome clue when Grace tells her daughter to ’’stop breathing like that Anne. Stop breathing! STOP BREATHING!!’’. Why would she repeat it so many times with the camera panned on her face?? Its so obvious a clue!
Another clue.. look at Grace’s face when she picks up the gun for the first time in the movie. Her face has a look of recognition, as though, I’ve seen this gun somewhere before, I remember something about it!
This movie is complicated. And it has many aspects, some of which I understood. There are more complications introduced by the sudden appearance of her long lost husband, and his strange behaviour. We are expected to guess that he is dead, and thus infer, that everyone he talks to is dead too. In fact, a scene where he asks Grace ’’What happened that night? I came to find out! ’’ should be a final clue!
Unfortunately, it doesnt occur to most people!
What have I not covered? The servants who show up to work in place of the ones that disappeared. But their characters are not too complex.
This is a very stylish movie, full of class. And you need to THINK your way through it, even knowing the full plot, you will appreciate the complexities. In that sense, its more complicated than the sixth sense. Essentially, the movie is flawless, if we assume the ’’i see only what I want to see’’ paradigm like the sixth sense.
One last beautiful point. Why do the kids see the ’’ghosts’’ and not grace? In the climax, we know the answer. Or at least, part of it. that is because, the people in the house have been holding seances, and the medium is trying harder to make contact with the kids.
Keep in mind, that every ’’horror’’ scene has a meaning. Unlike senseless horror stories where the objective is just to get scared. Every creaking door has a meaning. Thats the best thing about this movie.