REVIEW: A Touch of Love

Year: 1969

Director: Waris Hussein

Screenplay: Margaret Drabble

Starring: Sandy Dennis, Ian McKellan

 

Synopsis is here:

 

It’s always something when a film you know little about opens to be a small gem of a movie. I found A Touch of Love to be a stirring affair. From a technical point of view, there’s nothing remarkable about it. At first, the film struggles to find footing for 40 minutes of its running time. Suddenly the right gear is found, and things soon fall into place.  What could have been an upscaled kitchen sink drama becomes a touching and progressive feminist feature. It grows into a film with striking emotional earnestness, something unexpected from its pedestrian beginnings.

A Touch of Love starts disconcertingly. It opens with the lead protagonist Rosamund (Sandy Dennis), discovering she’s pregnant and making a hasty decision to terminate the pregnancy. A chance arrival of close friends derails her decision. When Rosamund decides almost on a whim to keep the child, the film becomes a mosaic. It leaps back and forth in time, giving background to Rosamund, the men in her life, and her family before leading to the occasion of her pregnancy: a one-night stand with a young news presenter (Ian McKellan in his film debut). With Rosamund’s decision to have the child, the film centres on her balancing the care for her child while trying to maintain her studies at the British Museum. The film soon finds focus, with Rosamund having to navigate a strange world of systems seemingly designed to work for those not in her unique situation.

Films depicting shifting cultural attitudes like Alfie (1966) and Darling (1965) may be more dynamic in their approach. Yet Sandy Dennis’s deceptively complex performance as Rosemond makes A Touch of Love worthy of a mention alongside the more infamous swinging sixties features.  1969 must have been a strange year for the actress, finding herself as the cornerstone of two distinctive flops. Dennis’ balance of brittle and fierce tenacity is the driving force that propels both A Touch of Love and Robert Altman’s That Cold Day in the Park. The latter film has her character slip into a murderous personality disorder through an apparent repressive family backstory. In A Touch of Love, Dennis’ Rosamund is a strongwilled, feminist character study. While her exterior exhibits the similar fragility of Altman’s film, Dennis ensures that Rosamund is a rather steely unknown quantity who only seems to allow us in when she wishes. She keeps her male acquaintances at a distance, staying non-committal to them as they never seem to give her what she desires. But she's willing to stand up against their behaviour when needed.  The inner conflict makes her brief relationship with George more intriguing as his coding marks him out as a closeted homosexual. The young McKellan plays George with all the charm you expect the then-young thespian would. And his charisma helps draw tension to their sometimes-awkward interactions while further marking out the changing cultural times.

Waris Hussein was already no stranger to cultural shifts. Hussein made his name as the first director of Doctor Who, turning down a lucrative overseas job with the BBC to work at their home office. Hussein was not only one of the first non-white directors at the BBC but also a gay Indian man. It’s of little shock that he’s in sync with the sensibilities of this issue-led drama. Hussein’s film is not one for technical flair. The camera knows where it needs to be placed, with very few visuals being particularly eye-catching.  But Hussein mines the actors well for confident, dramatic moments. Perhaps the most affecting sequence involves Rosamund battling out-of-touch nurses for the right to see her daughter after a potentially life-threatening operation. The menacing about the scene is the underlying thought of nurses doing their best to keep a single mother away from her child. Simply because they abhor her unconventional lifestyle. It’s never said outright, but something between the facial exchanges with the female staff seems to make the implication. Hussein ensures A Touch of Love thrives in its dramatic moments, even within the film’s more wayward beginnings.

Amicus Productions produced A Touch of Love. The company, more known for its cheap horror films than anything else, managed to ensure that the film made a profit by selling it to distributors for more than its cost. Later, producer Max Rosenberg claimed that A Touch of Love was the best film Amicus ever made. Despite its flaws, A Touch of Love shows that it is a text more ahead of its time than perhaps the then-present-day audience gives it credit for.  What appears to be a humdrum melodrama about a repressed wallflower blooms into a fascinating insight into a woman’s right to choose her path. A Touch of Love is a deceptive moniker for such a film. It has far more than a touch to express.

A Touch of Love is available on Blu-ray from 17th March.

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Article: Heist, Heist, Baby - Set it Off

Heist films are a subgenre dominated by men. Often suited and booted a la Ocean’s 11 (2001) and Reservoir Dogs. Frequently involving professional guys “doing the work”. Films such as those of Micheal Mann for instance. So often, women feel like they’re on the genre’s periphery. It’s not like they’re not involved. Quentin Tarantino’s most mature movie is Jackie Brown (1997). Harmony Korine happily dabbled with female-led heists in the hyper-saturated Spring Breakers (2013). Meanwhile, Steve McQueen’s muscular Widows (2018) is a film that feels somewhat overlooked. However, when you think of heist movies the genre is prominently male. 

One of the most notable female-driven heist movies is perhaps one of the best examples of the genre in the 90s.  F Gary Grey’s Set It Off was rejected by New Line Cinema 3 times before it was greenlit. Executives believed black males would baulk at the idea of a film which had a group of Black, gun-toting females in the forefront. Soon after people came to their senses, Set it Off was made on a budget of $9 million and grossed $41 Million at the box office. This was back in the days when movie budgets were far more reasonable. The film became New Line’s biggest hit of 1996. Opening the doors for much of the movie’s cast and director. To quote the late, great William Goldman: “Nobody knows anything”.  

With America fully masking off it is safe to reuse the old cliché: You couldn’t make anything like this now. Set it Off scores off the Republican bingo card in terms of its representation and politics. Ben Shapiro would quite simply lose his mind. While a possibly amusing sight to consider it would also be a shame. The dynamics that would make the gish galloping broadcaster plotz, are the same things which make Set it Off worth watching.

 After losing her job as a Bank Teller after a violent robbery, Frankie (Vivica A Fox) lands a menial job at a janitorial service with her three longstanding friends: Single mother Tisean (Kimberley Elise), rowdy and belligerent lesbian Cleo (Queen Latifah); and Stony (Jada Pinkett Smith), who is grieving from the recent loss of her younger brother. The foursome’s financial situations are in a crisis, with desperation leading Frankie to persuade the group that performing armed robberies is the perfect way for them to get enough money to push on with their lives and possibly escape the grim realities of their southern L.A. neighbourhood. 

One of the greatest strengths of Tarantino’s early work also became an albatross for much of film in general. Reservoir Dogs (1992) revels in its post-modernism. So much so that other genre movies of the nineties seemed to only trade in their sense of irony. When Tarantino's Jackie Brown hit theatres, a sense of frustration could be felt that Quentin had moved on from his familiar bag of tricks. Jackie Brown was *about* something. And it never seemed to be winking. The same goes for Set it Off, a mainstream heist movie, laced with sociopolitical themes built organically within the narrative. The film drops messages throughout the film. But nothing said feels like shouting. It's a subtle unsubtly that has four struggling black women, a minority group that Hollywood rarely has time for. Dealing with living on the breadline, single parenting, homosexuality and female companionship, while wrapped in golden Sunkissed visuals, and blockbuster action sequences. Set it Off is constructed as well as any piece of 90s genre work. Often better than many. But the unironic, and plausible realities that the women face within the narrative, give it an edge.

F Gary Grey has had a solid mainstream career as a director. With a filmography ranging from still amusing, black slacker comedy Friday (1995), to the brawny musical biopic Straight Outta Compton (2015). His filmmaking allows characters to have actual character. Grey knows how to breathe life into the people and world on screen.  The opening bank heist sequence scores high in its energy and violence. But Grey peppers memorable notes from minor aspects. With elements such as extras who say little but have their story etched on their faces. The focus of the scene is on Fox’s Frankie whose actions propel the narrative, yet Grey ensures that the ill-fated victims of the robbery have their place. At one point a customer catches the eye early on with the slightly haughty way they hold themselves. Making their departure more shocking. The small inhalation of breath from a security guard, not only highlights his anxiety but also foreshadows his fate. These tiny moments build a scene in a way lesser film could easily dismiss. To rag on how modern movies operate is low-hanging fruit. However, a fair few movies now tend to ignore the surrounding world the protagonists inhabit. Set it Off negates this by having a plausible world where people have their moments.

Grey is drawn to strong ensemble casts. Set it Off is no exception. The main cast is one of the things that brings the film together. Screenwriter Takashi Bufford told Blackfilm in 2011 that he had written the screenplay for Jada Pinkett Smith and Queen Latifah. Smith was known for her role as Lena James in the sitcom A Different World. Latifah, a known quantity from her rap career, leapt into acting with small roles in sitcoms and movies such as House Party 2 (1991). Interestingly, Jada Pinkett Smith had sights on Queen Latifah’s boisterous role of Celo before Grey turned her on to the role of Stony, the heart and soul of the film. Vivica A Fox performed in a range of primetime fare and had just come off a supporting role as Will Smith’s stripper girlfriend in Independence Day (1994). Though an element of luck, Fox got the role after Rosie Perez dropped out. Kimberly Elise made her screen debut in the film as the impressionable T.T. Even mixed reviews of Set it Off didn’t deny the chemistry and camaraderie of the four women on screen. These four girls feel like they’ve been a lifelong group of friends, it brings a different energy and dynamic to the typical heist movie. There are less troublesome concerns about misplaced loyalties. The interaction among the four is one of the film’s biggest strengths, particularly when it gets caught in some of the trappings of the genre.

The performances from the main cast have me questioning the ridiculous notion placed forth by the studio executives. Did they honestly believe that Black Men wouldn’t dig this? While the cast broke through and moved on to various projects after Set it Off. Arguably larger projects. They rarely produce turns as enjoyable as they do here.  Vivica A. Fox shows a ruthlessness that she never brings again until her turn Kill Bill (2003). Kimberly Elise does well with the “naïve” role that appears in many heist films of its type. For an on-screen debut, she shows very little inexperience. Larger plaudits go out to Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett Smith who play the id and superego of the group respectively. Latifah’s performance as a black lesbian is incredibly eye-catching due to being so well-rounded. Jada Pinkett Smith, who highlighted her flexibility in many roles in the 90s and early 00s comes through with a performance that perhaps shows her versatility best in Stony. At first, Smith comes across like the girl next door before growing into something different entirely. Films like Set it Off have me asking why Jada wasn’t showcased in more projects. It had me wanting to dive into more movies of hers I haven't seen, instead of just rewatching Woo (1998) and Bamboozled (2000).  

The vibrant cast bonds well with Grey’s assured filmmaking. The director, only 26 at the time, throws everything he can into the film. Often for the better. One can argue that the film is overstuffed. Grey packs everything he can into the film to give it relevance and weight. The bittersweet backstories of Stony and TT alone could make full plots for other features. There’s a feeling that the cast and crew are getting away with something here. Something that won’t be attempted too soon after. Therefore, Set it Off is filled with scenes illustrating gender, class, and racial struggle. Credit should be given to Grey’s use of form to establish this. The scene of the four women, smoking weed and bringing the world to rights is often highlighted, with the girls lamenting the now defunct factory that would have supplied all of them a living wage. However, the film never rests on its laurels with these themes. When Stony visits the home of Keith, her new boyfriend who just so happens to work high up in a bank the group have been casing, a chill of isolation can be felt. Grey forms this with simple wide framing to contrast Stony’s estrangement with Keith’s material world. “It’s not much” he claims dismissively but it’s more than Stony has ever had. 

Grey balances this with well-staged, punchy action sequences that are rich in their use of form. There’s a notable difference between the women’s haphazard first heist. The scene is full of jerky, frantic handheld camerawork. In comparison, once the girls know what they’re doing the heists become smoother, more orchestrated affairs. It’s easy to romanticise the filmmaking of yesteryear, but there’s something to be said about Set it Off’s love of push-ins and slow motion to punctuate moments of expression. Or how the film’s angles get more canted as the story intensifies later. It’s a movie in which the filmmaking feels motivated, making it hard not to feed off the energy. 

There’s something to be said about the levity of Set it Off compared to more male-orientated crime features. Set it Off still manages to deal with weighty “hood” subjects. Yet by shifting the dynamics to four black women who love each other, the film struts with a different energy. Its story isn’t out of the ordinary, yet Set it Off has these women share the screen in a way that sets it apart from other crime films. No longer is there a scene in a dark strip club with men gazing vacuously at female eye candy. Set it Off is more than happy to highlight female desires and sexuality. It is worth noting the film’s lesbian representation and how easily it’s normalised. Again, Ben Shapiro would lose his mind. In addition, many crime films have men with loyalties as the pinnacle of fragility. Set it Off views the women’s relationship with each other as a core strength. Granted this is a movie with a particular finish. Yet it is worth seeing that the strong bonds of the women don't bring them down. The film positions itself as opposed to the frantic paranoia loaded in other films of this nature. 

Recently a sequel to Set it Off has been considered. One of my favourite L.A. crushes, Issa Rae, has been attached to the production. However, this idea looks based that feels based on fuzzy-headed nostalgia and needless mining of intellectual properties. Such laziness once again neglects how many view movies. Set it off doesn’t reside in a vacuum. Nor does it hold the connective tissue to create a second story worth engaging in. Much like the girls in the movie, Set it Off had one shot to move fast and make it big and it took it with aplomb.  Leaving Hollywood to learn the wrong lessons that such a movie brings. But isn’t that often the way?

Set it Off can be found on Amazon Video

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Article: Heist, Heist, Baby - Face (1997)

 Ray used to stand for something. Throughout the runtime of Face, he is called a commie, a left winger and a socialist. In the film's numerous flashbacks, Ray is on the front lines of protests, demonstrating for workers' rights with his mother. His girlfriend, Connie (Lena Headey) who he met during protests, looks after child refugees in a London boarding house. Ray’s beliefs are somewhat vague in their entirety, however. He leans left politically. At least he used to incline that way. One of the more potent themes in Face is how capitalism stamps over idealism. Ray may have held principles in the past, but those days are in the rear-view mirror of his youth. Ray is now an armed robber, more focused on money for himself than the virtues of his past. Even though he would have earned a better crust on the straight and narrow than what he gets now. The problem is capitalism has an interesting way of skewering a person’s view.

Face was released in 1997, a year before the dick-swinging mockney gangsters of Guy Richie infiltrated cinema. Don’t get me wrong. There’s plenty of room for Richie’s flashy aesthetic, with his early work showing a sense of populist cinema I would mind seeing more from British filmmaking nowadays. But Antonia Bird’s shadowy crime feature of a heist turned sour is equally compelling although in a different way. Face’s conflicted criminals with compromised souls are very different from shallow “Cool Britannia” energy that radiates from Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Narratively Face is no different from many heist movies before or after it. A motley crew of criminals headed by the morally conflicted Ray (Robert Carlyle) fall into trouble when a spate of incidents befouls them after the successful undertaking of their latest heist. Tension is already high since the crew doesn't manage to swipe the minimum amount they aimed for. Now, someone has taken the money from them. And murmurs of a rat in the group grow steadily larger. Ray leads the charge to discover what happened and how they can reclaim their money. The plot of Face doesn’t sound too different from the dozens of post-modern, Tarantino-spliced movies that littered the 90s. But Antonia Bird’s feature (written by Ronan Bennett of Top Boy fame), while stylish, is draped in a political cynicism that someone like me is crying for to come back.

When it feels like societal change and community building is a task worthy of Sisyphus, how willing are you to give up those beliefs and take the bag? This question resides at the heart of Face, which is unflinching in that the 80s ideals of the left have failed, and now, in the 90s, the only thing you can do is take the money and run. Perhaps the most revealing moment comes late on in the film when a character bluntly states that there is no public service, only money and the people who can obtain it. It’s a marked moment in the film that hits home even more after 14 years of modern conservatism. The film feels even more barbed as it came out only a few months after Tony Blair became Prime Minster with New Labour taking over Britain. Then there’s an element of discombobulation remembering pictures of Oasis’ Noel Gallagher wining and dining with Blair at the beginning of his tenure.

Meanwhile, Blur’s Damon Albarn appears as a young member of Ray’s gang. As if Oasis and Blur didn't just draw battle lines with Roll with It and Country House. Albarn’s appearance holds an element of stunt casting, he’s not in the film for long. But it is telling to see him in this film as his debut, with the outer knowledge of his future activism. Elsewhere, Oasis drew controversy with their dynamic pricing in their comeback tour…

Antonia Bird captures the strong sense of alienation felt by people frustrated by years of doing what they felt was morally sound. She fills the background with billboards which yell Enough is enough and Graffiti that argues “Vote Apathy”.  A prang of jealousy can be felt when Ray meets up with his right-hand man Dave (Ray Winstone) before preparing to do the job. Winston’s character has benefited well from criminality and his London suburb home is evidence of that. If Ray was even less married to his principles, would he be found here, far away from the protests and politics? This is the dopamine bliss money provides: Ignorance from a world that needs saving. The tensely shot heist stands out as it has Ray look at the honest workers he’s stealing from with Bird cross-cutting them against the faces of protesters and the needy he stood with years before. Solidifying him as a man of certain standings who has lost his way. If Ray was less married to his politics, would he be here?

Robert Carlyle shows his worth here. Almost more than he does in his more noted performances. Ray is a more complicated character than the likes of Trainspotting’s Bigbie. While you wouldn’t be surprised that both characters could have the same velocity, there’s a simmering intensity to Ray, that suggests a more profound sense of danger.  This is blended with Ray’s values. While a guy like Bigbie shows clear warning signs, it’s harder to see such things in Ray. What’s fascinating is watching Carlye have Ray constantly wrestling with his conscience in almost every scene. Carlyle's turn reminds us of how potent the actor was in the 90s and early 00s. Ray Winstone is also strong here. His role of David is a lot more shaded than so many of his “geezer” characters. Winstone’s performance feels like a stepping stone towards his iconic performance in Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast (2000) only 3 years later.

Films such as Face and Sexy Beast almost feel like anomalies by the early 00s. Face has one foot in the bygone eras of decades past. Feeling much more like The Long Good Friday (1980) than anything that came after it. By the next year, the game had changed. With Guy Richie’s cheeky chappies ushering in something more over the top and cartoonish than before. It’s not surprising that Bird’s film loses a bit of its potency in the third act of the film when the film becomes more conventional, and action-packed. Although it’s worth noting how well-staged the shootouts are. Managing to pack a real punch as the film winds towards a path well-travelled. The late Antonia Bird had this to say about her movie:

“It’s set in the East End where I’ve lived for the past 20 years and it’s about the people I know and care about... You could have a drink with a lot of guys I know, and you’d never guess that they were involved in crime... In Face, I wasn’t trying to show them in a good light, but I was trying to say these are real people with real inner lives. They have the same emotional responses and needs as you or I because that is truer to what I know.”

With this said it’s bittersweet that the film’s narrative bows itself to movie convention in the finale. This doesn’t mean Face loses relevancy. If anything, the dark cynicism that ebbs throughout the film only feels more precedent as each year passes. The desire of Face to be a confident genre piece that also happens about something has only strengthened the film as time goes on. Mostly because it feels like we’re seeing less of this sort of thing. Films stumbling at the final hurdle is absolutely fine if it means we could get more of this ambitious, well-crafted fare back. It’s not like the material isn’t there. We just need folk to pick up the mantle.

Face can be found on BFI Player. I viewed it on an out of print DVD however.

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Article: Going Gothic – I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House

 If you happen to be the son of the actor who portrayed one of horror’s greatest villains, I think it’s safe to say you probably have a certain measure of pedigree. Oz Perkins, son of Anthony ‘Norman Bates’ Perkins, hit paydirt with the 2024 marketing hype beast that was Longlegs. While the 90s period procedural made pay dirt with a solid advertising campaign which turned heads, it is safe to say that the film polarised viewers with its refusal to bend to typical expectations...or logic. Believe me as a lowly film writer, I have no desire to lie to you. Longlegs doesn’t make complete sense. And yet the film’s interest in “vibes” still makes it a compelling watch with a climax that, while slightly goofy, still harbours one of the most concerning final moments of 2024…if you were down with what Perkins was selling.

The traction of Longlegs (2024) was unexpected. Especially when considering the horror features Perkins directed before it. As a genre director, he deals with deliberate slow burns which grow and build like mould in the corner of a damp room. His films are exercises in extended suspense. Shots get held longer than one would expect. Nothing ever feels conventional, and things are rarely fully explained. I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in The House is in the same wheelhouse as Long Legs or The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015). It is deliberately paced and uninterested in submitting to the horror status quo.  The film is gothic in its purest form. Taking a past tragedy and having it become a rotting stain or a burnt shadow which never fades. Perkins delivers horror films which linger and infect. Like Session 9 (2001) it suggests that such dread lies dormant in the shadows until the chance arises to infect the weak and the wounded.

Ruth Wilson plays Lily, a live-in nurse sent to a remote house in Massachusetts to look after Iris Blum (Paula Prentiss), an elderly female writer who suffers from dementia. Lily scares easily. With little in the house apart from Iris’ penny thrillers for entertainment, Lily’s imagination, or what appears to be her imagination, begins to play tricks on her. She begins to sense something supernatural is in the house with Iris and herself. Something connected to the books, and possibly events that previously occurred within the house itself.

There’s a layer of chill that rests on the surface of Perkins's film. The jump scares if indeed you can call them that, are mild in their execution. However, Perkins’ use of empty and liminal spaces brings a sense of uneasy stillness, making you wish something should happen to break the suffocating tension. While this may sound like an oxymoron, nothing happens and that’s the point. To a sub-section of horror fans, this film will piss them off. To those who find something within films that deal with the saddening deaths of lonely, forgotten women, they may absolutely find a new favourite film. There’s a subtlety to IATPTTLITH that can really connect with a viewer allows it. The film deals with a narrative of female abuse and loneliness that is as quietly upsetting as it is unsettling. What’s difficult is that not everyone will be able to cling to this theme. Narratively the film is so slight it’s easy to feel that you might have missed something. The film moves from beginning to end in a way that may feel inconsequential in its execution.

But there’s effectiveness in its atmosphere. Some films are louder with their scares but aren’t as disquieting with their sense of dread. Wilson is the perfect actress for this kind of story. A performer whose looks can’t be placed easily within the past or present. It’s easy to absorb her fear as she frets around the house, unsure of herself, or the abode she’s been asked to reside in. A lot of IATPTTLITH works because of how convincing Wilson is. A bundle of nerves, unsure of where to place herself. Either within the house or in conversations. The dominant aspect of Wilson’s performance lies in her creepy narration which slips into pockets of the film, helping to build the unease of the film’s sparse compositions.  

Much like the films of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the film captures a bleak tone that often resides in the Gothic. We see remnants left by ghosts unable to save others from their possible doomed existence. An elderly woman dying of dementia. Her disease is doing its best to take away her personality and essence at the end of her life. This also leaves Iris unable to fully inform her carer of what may lie ahead of her. Iris’ book that Lily reads, is based on the film's main ghost, Polly and what may have happened to her within the walls of the house, the women are living in. It is mentioned in the book that Polly never gets to elaborate on what occurred to her, although the audience does. She is a woman unable to clarify what happens to her. Lilly also illustrates within the film’s narration, that her story is cut short, with her chronicle to be forever embedded within the house. The weight of dread lies heavy in this collection of stories by women who aren’t allowed to close the book on themselves.

This sad aspect brings out one of Perkins’ strengths as a director. A Lynchian love for his female characters, something also seen in Longlegs and The Blackcoats Daughter. As vague as Perkins' films may be, he still finds reason to tell the saddening fate of these three women. Furthermore, as a horror formalist, he does this with a formidable command of mood. Many will want the film to “do more” with the material. But I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives in the House is much like Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) in that less is more here. The film tells you enough. Possibly even more if you’re willing. But it’s important to note that Perkins wants to envelop people with mood. If you have the patience, the film will reward you. However, you must be interested in what Perkins is selling. You must be willing to get with the vibe.

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House can be found on Netflix

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Article: Going Gothic - The Others

Finding films like The Others is becoming taxing. The film is now almost 25 years old and has reminded me of the relentless and pressing march of time moving ever forward. To imagine it being pitched to a non-A24 studio executive now would require an amount of guile. It’s hard to see such a traditional style haunting finding an audience as well as it did in the early 00s. The film made $210 million from a meagre $17 million budget. Such a feat feels less and less likely as the years move by.

Even though it’s been over two decades, The Others still manages to provide a chill. Even if you already know how the story plays out. The silent moments and knowing glances still hold a stern effectiveness. The film doesn’t have as many frightening set pieces as I recall. I was shocked that the film doesn’t have as many bumps in the night as previously remembered. But what makes The Others successful is the precision of its storytelling and its wonderfully vulnerable central performance. The focus on the eerie atmosphere more than makes up for its lack of typical jump scares. Combined with its command of its story and lack of blood and gore, the film is a wonderfully formative horror movie. Providing the right amount of tension and suspense to guide younger audience members into the realms of the macabre, without its scares being too alienating.

Set in 1945, Nicole Kidman plays Grace, who resides in a remote country manor in Jersey with her two uncommonly photo-sensitive children. The arrival of three new servants has Grace explain the strict rules of the house. Locked doors and heavily drawn curtains restrict the light that enters the house. The combination of a father missing overseas due to the war and overzealous, near-religious rules installed by Grace takes an emotional toll on all involved, with Grace and her new servants struggling with substantial friction. There is also strain between Grace and her children as a dramatic event occurred in the recent past between them. Things take a drastic turn when a series of uncanny events occur, bringing things to a chilling supernatural conclusion.

Does Nicole Kidman get her due? Despite being Hollywood's top brass, I’ve always felt that Kidman straddles between being well-regarded yet undervalued. Detractors make superficial observations of the actress as cold and dispassionate. However, my enjoyment of Kidman has always come from how well she plays women who regulate their emotions, only allowing small moments passions flow over. Her sexuality is often carefully calculated, calibrated and used like a weapon. Dead Calm (1989) and To Die For (1995) are perfect examples. Moulin Rouge (2001), released in the same year as The Others, almost plays as a parody of what Kidman does, flaunting herself so extravagantly that it felt too false to some at times. Although said falseness seemed to be the point.

The Others is a significant example of Kidman repressing and regulating. Pretending everything is ok even when evident cracks are starting to show.  Her demeanour is perfect for the type of paranoia and mania beset on protagonists in Gothic fare.  Kidman’s performance of Grace fits quite comfortably in the sub-genre of her work: A repressed woman slowly losing her mind in a vast empty house. For other examples see Stoker (2013) and The Beguiled (2017). Both themselves are compulsive Gothic dramas. Much like The Shining (1980), it’s evident that hysteria has already reached a peak before things start to bump in the night. Grace opens the film properly by screaming herself awake. It’s a moment which strengthens the story after its first viewing. Starting this way only helps indicate how deep the descent into mania might be.

Kidman is solid throughout the film. Eschewing the so-called Ice Queen persona – an identity that seems more akin to her red-carpet appearances/interviews than her film performances – and delivering a heightened, expressionistic display of matricidal fear. Often wide-eyed and shrill throughout the film, Grace is also a strongly determined woman, willing to do whatever she can to protect her children, even though it sometimes feels like she dislikes them.  It is perhaps why The Others stands out in Kidman’s filmography. It’s a film which shows her as a woman who is both strong-willed yet naïve and conflicted. Kidman’s character of Suzanne Stone in To Die For is full of similar traits. There's little surprise that these roles stand out amongst her filmography, as Kidman seems to excel in such displays where the women seem to be hiding scorn for those around them while also doing their best to swallow their contempt for themselves. 

Director Alejandro Amenábar deftly controls the story of Grace’s growing irrationality, By drip-feeding the information and misdirection into the story where needed. The stellar supporting cast also bolsters events. Including committed supporting turns from Fionnula Flanagan and child actors Alakina Mann and James Bentley. In rewatching The Others, the telltale signs are far more apparent than once remembered. I was pleasantly surprised at how the burden of time allowed me to forget just how early it lets you in on some of its secrets. However, Amenábar’s tight grip on the narrative and the well-drawn-out characters allow a viewer to get swept up in the story instead of trying to figure everything out. And as suggested earlier, knowing what occurs never ruins the enjoyment. It merely adds to it.

Amenábar is less interested in cheap scares as he is in extended periods of suspense. This is not to say that the film does have shocking moments. A sequence in the piano room still holds a high grade in unexpectedness. Meanwhile, the film's visuals are a grand exercise in creating a discomforting atmosphere. Cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe pulls out a simple but effective bag of tricks ranging from unorthodox camera angles and movements to inspired uses of light and reflection. The set design is also noteworthy. The Jersey manor, the only location, is constantly shrouded by thick fog. The use of low light and murky fog not only creates a sense of inescapable and oppressive dread but also a visual metaphor of uncertainty, which matches the growing insecurity held by Grace as the film continues.

As a Gothic period piece, The Others is a traditional Ghost story which leans a lot on the Haunting (1954) and The Innocents (1966) with the film taking on similar creepy aesthetics. However, the notable themes of isolation, dread and paranoia caused by family dysfunction echo in films such as The Babadook (2014) and Hereditary (2018). So, while it’s becoming harder to see studio executives as interested in such a period horror now as they were back then, Nosferatu (2024) withstanding, the elements which make The Others such an enjoyable tale live on in albeit overt, mutated forms. 24 years on, The Others still holds a gem of a Nicole Kidman performance. And as a piece of Gothic horror, it still shines brightly.

 

 The Others is currently streaming on ITVx. I however have it on disc.

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