Movie relies on subtlety, pacing

Jeremy Rea
Staff Writer

In the wake of the ultra successful "The Sixth Sense," it's surprising and perhaps disappointing that there has not been a renaissance of atmospheric, gore-free films.

With the exception of M. Night Shyamalan's own messy follow-up, "Unbreakable," the genre has been left largely untouched, so it's nice to see the release of the sparse, artsy "The Others." It's also nice that the movie doesn't suck.

Relying on dim lighting, confined spaces, a sense of the unknown and mundane disturbances to build and hold its tension, "The Others" is a testament to subtle, complex horror. Writer and director Alejandro Amenábar films the movie as a love letter to low-budget set pieces of the '40s and '50s, which left terror to the audience's imagination out of necessity.

Immediately after the end of World War II, Grace (Nicole Kidman) waits despondently with her two children for the return of her husband, whose almost-certain death she refuses to accept. The children suffer from a disorder that makes them extremely sensitive to light, so they must always be kept in rooms lit by a solitary oil lamp.

Grace wakes one morning to discover the servants in her cavernous Victorian estate have left without warning, only to have three replacements (Fionnula Flanagan, Eric Sykes, and Elaine Cassidy) mysteriously arrive one week later.

Soon afterwards, Grace's daughter begins insisting there are other people living in the house, and strange events start to occur.

Fiercely over-protective of her children, Grace insists that all doors must be locked, and that the sunlight be contained "like water in a ship." She anguishes finding curtains drawn and doors left ajar, and as these events, deadly to her children, begin occurring frequently, she starts to question her own feeble sanity.

Shot with stylish claustrophobia and a spare musical score, "The Others" draws out slowly, holding its key cards as long as possible. The pacing is alternately deliberate and tedious, and sometimes both, a facet that can wear on the audience's patience, especially with a run time just shy of two hours.

But the icy presence of Kidman constantly buoys the film — she uses the fact that she naturally seems a little crazy, and her portrayal of a mother whose love for her children is so intense it borders malevolence is the core of the movie.

"The Others" is also worth sticking out for the obligatory "twist" ending, which, in addition to being surprising, also brings with it a number of disturbing dynamics.

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