Intriguing ghost story

Rating: 8/10 (12 January 2005)

This movie, starring Nicole Kidman as Grace, a deeply religious mother with two photosensitive children (Alakina Mann as Anne, James Bentley as Nicholas), starts with a mysterious trio of new servants (Eric Sykes, Elaine Cassidy and Fionnula Flanagan) being employed to look after the house, the garden, and to look after the children. The house is only lit by candles and the curtains must always be drawn in daylight, adding to the creepy feel of the piece.
The music is minimal and help the effect when strange things happen. The twists - first we find that the servants died fifty years earlier of TB and are buried in the garden, then (twist on twist) we find that Grace killed her children and then herself and their spirits live on. The intruders are not the people we think they are! There are several hints to point to this when you reflect on the film - Grace's husband Charles, who was at war, appearing out of the fog in the garden and then disappearing; the curtains being taken down by persons unknown; the boy Victor squabbling with the ghost children over the light; and the photographic 'book of the dead' (the one photo missing being the one of the three servants).
Does all this work? I'm not sure. There is certainly atmosphere throughout, and some shocks - but the ending felt like a cop-out in many ways. An interesting idea that just misses the mark.