I’d been wanting to revisit The Others (2001) for a while, but it doesn’t appear to be streamable anywhere here in the States, even as a rental. So, I dusted off the DVD tonight.
I worked at the cinema when this came out and I remember watching it in a packed theater. It may have been one of my earliest experiences with jump scares in a group setting like that. I remember enjoying it and being taken aback by the twist ending. Sometimes I think social media has made it very difficult to avoid spoilers for popular media, and then I remember the last words in Diabolique (1955) urging folks not to spoil it for others. Ha!
Kidman is awesome here, as usual. In the special features, she describes her character as difficult and appears conflicted about playing it (you’ll understand if you’ve seen the film). And knowing she divorced Cruise the same year I can only imagine what she’s going through. Maybe some of that pain made it on screen.
The rest of the cast is great, notably Fionnula Flanagan (Bertha) as the nanny. She oscillates between appearing genuinely helpful and having her own agenda or worse at times. Surprisingly, much of the cast is Irish, including what we may retrospectively call a cameo by Michelle Fairly. Folks that have seen Game of Thrones will know Fairly as the stalwart Catelyn Stark. Shame about that whole Red Wedding thing.
Anyway, seeing this reminds me that I want to see another one of the director’s (Alejandro Amenabar) films: Abre Los Ojos. Time to update my watchlist.