An Ingenious Adaptation of James' Novella - If That's What It Was

Rating: Null/10 (11 April 2011)

Since the comparison between this movie and M. Night Shyamalan's "ghost" piece is inevitable because both of them are based on pretty much the same idea allow me to start with saying that while the latter works out perfectly (its predictable but still formidable resolution included), the second implementation of this idea provided by Alejandro Amenabar seems to be a little less effective.
In the case of "The Sixth Sense" the viewer - even if equipped with five basic ones only - can start to suspect something at the very beginning of the movie. Somewhere halfway into it it's simply impossible not to know what's going on there. But due to the inventive way in which the feature is structured nothing happens to be ruined through it. And despite our possible foreknowledge both the first and second part of the movie can be described as equally fascinating.
"The Others" is another story. Here it's also possible to figure out what's going on somewhere in the middle of the feature - it must be admitted not without a little help of your being acquainted with "The Sixth Sense". But - albeit the movie is very well made in terms of its atmosphere - nothing particularly holds your attention neither prior to nor after that moment. Besides, if Night Shyamalan manages to implement the original idea in question with great consistency and without a single instance of cheating, Amenabar's flick does not seem to be completely impeccable in this respect - for example, I might be missing something but should we presume that before the curtains happen to be altogether removed the "real" family never tried to open them? Nevertheless I believe "The Others" can be considered a minor masterpiece. All you need to do to let this miraculous transformation happen to the movie is to perceive it not as a somewhat epigonic attempt at exploiting an idea which has already been properly utilized once, but rather as a quite ingenious screen adaptation of Henry James' "The Turn Of The Screw". Indeed, parallels between the two pieces would be multiple.
In the case of James' magnificent novella what we have on the surface is a "ghost" story about two children being haunted by apparitions of servants and their governess who is in a desperate attempt to protect them. However, according to more recent interpretations - which seem much more plausible than earlier readings - the story that had really been written by James and skilfully hidden behind the first one is a horrid drama of children betrayed by their protectress - not out of malicious impulse, but on simple and unfortunate grounds of being mad. Which would be the core structure and meaning of "The Others" exactly.
If we go into details we find numerous other correspondences: two children (but in James' story one of them survives the ordeal), a totally isolated abode where events take place, apparitions of servants who supposedly pose a threat, occasional attempts of the children to rebel against imposed "protection". Even the reason for madness is probably one and the same in both cases - the passionate love turned by circumstances into an impossible one. But the main thing is connection between the structural frames of these pieces with exactly the same pattern transpiring in both of them: we follow the story of children haunted by ghosts and come to a shocking revelation - there is no ghosts, but the tragedy is deeper than we could ever imagine. So if this movie was, in fact, inspired by James' work, what we have here is a perfectly accurate rendition of the original idea into the language of film. And, probably, one of the most brilliant screen adaptations of a literary work among all ever undertaken.