A powerful, intense thriller.

Rating: 8/10 (18 January 2017)

In this film, a mother tries to educate her two children by herself, protecting them from a mysterious illness that causes them great sensitivity to intense lights, such as sunlight. While her husband is fighting the Nazis, she lives isolated in a Channel Islands mansion, keeping the house in partial darkness along with three mysterious servants. The lead role is played by Nicole Kidman, who does a brilliant performance in a character who sometimes seems very loving, almost needy, and other times seems unusually hard. But she's just a woman trying to bear a burden that seems heavy: the burden of carrying everything back while her husband is away. The children are equally interesting: played by James Bentley and Alakina Mann, two very competent young actors, they are naive, sweet but also very mischievous, and their mischief contributes greatly to the suspense, especially the girl. She seems to know something that nobody else knows or to have a particularly sharp intelligence. The father, played by Christopher Eccleston, is almost a mere figure. He is purposely an absent character who is permanently present for the simple fact of all the others are constantly speaking of him, and this absence has great importance to the psyche of his wife. But the true life of this film is borrowed by Fionnula Flanagan and Eric Sykes who (along with Elaine Cassidy) give life to the house servants. The way they acted and how counter-acted with Kidman is brilliant, giving the film a deeply conspiratorial atmosphere. The constant darkness, the gas lights, the huge old house, the permanent haze surrounding the grounds are cliché elements that give the film a touch of elegance and help the audience to grab to the movie until the end, which is quite unexpected and disconcerting.