The Others--Otherwise Awesome

I give a lot of Spoilers out on this page, but for this post, I absolutely refuse to do it. Why? Because watch this movie. I’m serious. There’s nothing quite like this film I’ve ever seen. The ending will leave you stunned.

                STOP. STOP GOOGLING IT. Go to Amazon or Netflix or Blockbuster (just kidding. Blockbuster is dead) and WATCH THIS MOVIE. It’s a Fight Club ending without Brad Pitt and all the explosions.

                The basic summary is this: a woman (Nicole Kidman) lives in a house with her two children who are allergic to light and must always be in the dark. She locks every room behind them and draws every curtain so as to contain all the sunlight.

                One day three servants show up at the door after her own servants have mysteriously disappeared. Her husband has died in the WWII, so she is thankful for the help, even though her advertisement seeking employees has not yet been published in the newspaper. Because strangers showing up at your doorstep with no explanation for how they got there is basically a great indicator they should be left alone with your children.

She was a witch but read an ad in the paper.

            Of course things go wrong, and the audience is never sure what the servants are up to, but we know they’re creepy. This movie keeps you guessing. The house is haunted, but only the little girl can see ghosts. Doors open when they shouldn’t and Nicole Kidman feels like she’s going mad and attacks her children. Their dead father shows up, very much alive, but leaves them again to go back to the battlefield, and, most importantly, somebody stole all the curtains.  Everything is confusing and suspenseful until BAM. It hits you like a truck.

                We’ve talked about “The Wind in the Rose-Bush” and other loving tales where Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman loves both killing children and having two names.  So this is a similar mother-child story. We’re questioned with whether or not Nicole Kidman is a good mother or too strict and demanding. She certainly isn’t negligent like the mothers in Wilkins Freeman stories. But if you finish the movie, you will definitely see she would do anything for her children. Anything.

                Isolation. It’s a big house in the middle of nowhere, which is the beginning of 80% of every scary movie. The protagonists cannot go outside because of the children’s sun allergy and the fog is so thick Nicole Kidman says she feels alone.

                Women. There is a definite female presence here. The gardener is the only man and he spends most of the movie outside with very little dialogue. Both Nicole Kidman and the daughter are the ones most affected by the haunting, the little boy calling his sister a liar when she tries to convince him there are ghosts. In fact, the movie definitely creates a parallel between Nicole Kidman and her daughter. Often they repeat the same lines and have similar strong-willed personalities.

                The trickiest element in the film I now mention in hopes someone who has seen the film can offer more insight: Christianity. Nicole Kidman is a devout Catholic and is seen often encouraging her children to be the same. But her children both, secretly, express their doubts in the Bible and Jesus. In a pivotal scene where the curtains are stolen, Nicole Kidman takes a board with the Lord’s Prayer written on it and turns it into the sun against the window, so the message is no longer facing her children. Maybe it is just coincidence, but we have to ask if this is significant.

                The ending lines of the film, the children ask about the afterlife, reminiscent of a conversation earlier in the film. Their mother, who has been so convicted the entire time of Heaven, Hell, and limbo, replies that she doesn’t know the answer. Her loss of faith has to be echoing a larger Gothic motif, but I just can’t place my finger on its significance.

                This movie is recommended. 

Movie Trailer