| THE OTHERS |
 2001 – France / Spain / USA
Director: Alejandro Amenábar - Reviewed by Tom
The story takes place in the early 1940s during WWII when Grace (Kidman) finds that she is suddenly alone in a large dark house when her husband goes MIA in the war. The servants who were helping her out suddenly ran off for some reason—one day they were there, the next they had strangely vanished. Grace is suddenly a single mother taking care of her two children who have that rare disease where they suddenly turn into kid-sized tumors if they are exposed to any sunlight at all. All curtains must be closed and doors locked behind them to avoid any possible light leaks. Grace is a loving but strict mother: when the daughter's imaginary friend opens the curtains, torments little brother, or channels voices in an Exorcist fashion, she is punished by having to be alone reading the Bible for hours straight. Of course there are bound to be ghosts living in an old stone farmhouse constantly shrouded by fog. Grace is relieved when three strangers show up at the door in response to a servant/nanny request. The new servants get blamed for the strange noises, open curtains, and other odd things occurring in the spooky house.... It would be hard to say much more about the movie without a major spoiler, so I'll just sum it up and say it has a very clever plot twist in the end similar to a certain Bruce Willis movie that was out a couple years ago. The movie uses no special effects at all, although I wonder how they found a place with so much lingering fog! The creepiness of the movie is very similar to Blair Witch Project in the way that we never see any of the creeps—it's all psychological. I recommend the movie and would say it is worth the full price ticket if you have $8.50 to spend on a movie. This is one of those movies that you will still be thinking about for a while after leaving the theater, mainly piecing together all the events that led up to the ending and realizing that it all made sense. |
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The Others was a movie that totally surprised me (which
isn't hard to do—just ask Linda and Kerri!). I
managed to completely avoid reading anything about this
movie before I saw it, so all I knew about it was that
Nicole Kidman was in it, and nothing more.
