The Awakening

Plot synopsis:
1921: England. Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) is a published author on supernatural hoaxes who works with the police to expose charlatans and debunk supernatural phenomena, having begun her foray into her profession upon the death of her lover in World War I. Upon a visit from Robert Mallory (Dominic West), a teacher from a boarding school with the request to investigate the recent death of a student, Walter Portman, and to determine if and how it is related to sightings of a ghost of a child, she travels to the school hoping to explain the sightings and the death. The ghostly sightings are at first thought to be a prank played by one of the boys at the school. Florence deduces that one of the teachers was the last to see the boy alive and questions him until he admits to putting the young boy outside to "man up", thus scaring the young boy and causing him to have an asthma attack. The school is closed for half-term with the only occupants being Robert, Maud (Imelda Staunton) the housekeeper and Tom, a lonely child, who tells Florence his parents live in India which takes too long for him to travel to.As Florence leaves, an unexplained hand reaches for Florence from a pond after which she faints and falls into the pond. Florence is rescued by Robert. Afterwards of the characters clearly treat the incident as a suicide attempt. which may or may not be a suicide attempt but Florence recovers and hears another unexplained noise, and becomes determined to put to rest supernatural apprehensions. Florence and Robert start developing a mutual attraction. More unexplainable supernatural events start to manifest and subsequently the story is unwound through revelations. Edward Judd (Joseph Mawle), the grounds keeper, earlier known to have a grudge against Robert, is jealous and attempts to rape Florence in the woods. Florence, assisted by the supernatural accidentally kills him by the butt of his own gun.Robert is revealed to be able to see and communicate with some of his own ghosts, which form an unexplored tangent to this story. Tom is revealed to now be a ghost and was Florence's half brother and Maud's son. Florence and Tom grew up in the house that is now a boarding school. While Florence and Tom were young, their father became mad and killed Florence's mother, Tom and himself while also trying to kill Florence. Florence had blocked these memories of her childhood. Maud, who also sees Tom, explains that Tom is lonely and that he needs his family; Maud poisons herself and Florence, intending for their ghosts to join Tom. Florence, however, tells Tom that she will not be happy if she dies now and that she will always be with Tom. Tom then helps Florence by bringing her medicine to throw up the poison.As is common in many ghost stories, it is not clear if Florence is a ghost for the epilogue. Some viewers believe the curative is to no avail, and Florence dies. The film can be interpreted that the only adult that can see Florence is Mallory as it has been established earlier that Mallory is also haunted; the headmaster speaks of her as if she is not there. Only the children can see ghosts, and only the children can see Florence when she leaves the schoolhouse a lonely child (of the kind who could see Tom) acknowledges her. Maud and Tom are gone, and she says though she can't see them, they are not forgotten, raising the possibility they are now at peace.The more straightforward interpretation is that the antidote was successful: the headmaster ignores Florence because of the negative publicity for the school (and he mentions only one death); Florence and Mallory share a cigarette at the film's conclusion; she is leaving by car (Mauds aim was to keep her at the house); and she talks of writing another book.

Tags: suspenseful, horror, gothic, atmospheric, haunting

Review:
With so many shaky cam, found footage, reality show type horror/suspense movies hitting the box offices and living rooms around the world with poor character development, over the top torture and gore, plots so thin they are the only transparent ghosts in the picture.
There is a fine line to walk especially with a ghost story, to achieve that sense of spine tingling, skin crawling feeling and that element can only be teased from the psyche with mystery, not in your face guts or a head being lopped off - that is shock value and gross out, which is perfectly fine for a slasher pic or a grind house movie, but not a good ghost story.
"The Awakening" is set in 1921 England, our Protagonist Florence Cathcart a free thinking, strong willed ghost buster, author and hoax crusher opens this gem of a movie by diving right into the fray.
But after being invited to a supposedly haunted old grand estate that was converted into a boy's boarding school, with a recent death of a student and a rumor of an old murder and sightings of a ghost, Florence finds much more than school boy pranks and hoaxes - she finds something good, something frightening and something truly enlightening.
While it may be true that there is nothing new under the sun and we've all seen the same plots and themes over and over again - I have found there is always something new to add to the age old themes.This movie is in my top 10 of great ghost stories - 8 out of 10 stars for "The Awakening"..
However, there are movies that have taken the this tired formula and made splendid films - The Orphanage is a good example of a ghost story done right.
However, haunted by her personal sense of guilt and loss, Florence finds the rational solution unsatisfactory and searches instead for an antidote to her own suffering.Haunting cinematography, a strong cast and a story line which supports both suspense and character depth, enable this film to stand alongside "the orphanage" and "the Others" rather than being shadowed by them.Winner of the Jury Prize at the Gerardmer Film Festival in France..
The most under appreciated horror film of 2012.Rebecca Hall plays Florence Cathcart, a Hoax exposer who is called to a boarding house to investigate strange paranormal activity.
Florence comments with Robert and he tells that there is only three persons in the boarding school, leaving Florence scared."The Awakening" is a ghost story that begins with the information that between 1914 and 1919, the war and the influenza claimed more than one million lives in Britain.
The Awakening is the better execution though, and you need look no further to find a spine chiller that's anchored in a relatable, human story that truly surprises you in the end, and not a cheesy, plodding mess like Woman In Black.
Despite my intense liking for old-fashioned ghost stories, "The Awakening" however failed in intrigue and turn on, quickly falling into traps of formulaic treatment.
The performances are also strong, with Rebecca Hall as a formidable and convincing lead; Dominic West plays her counterpoint as the headmaster of the school.Where the film seems to lose its bearings is in plot and tone.
It is not so much convoluted in terms of narrative, but convoluted in tone; the flashback scenes near the end are also awkwardly edited, which is a shame as they are key to the film's real clout.Overall, "The Awakening," in spite of its shortcomings, is a considerably mature and effective ghost story.
The movie does not sound original, in terms of plot and style, it is a very old-style ghost story, built according to the most traditional but still effective means in pictures like these, where the supernatural has to find its ways.
Creaking doors, mysterious sounds, light and dark play, set in a solitary gloomy mansion in the English countryside, are part of the oldest tradition of scary movies, the plot twists are also not new, but the impression I got is that of a simple, well crafted ghost story, with an interesting psychological insight, that without needing exaggerated sci-fi effects gets to appeal and entertain the viewer till the end.
This film is all over the place.It is muddled, convoluted and confusing.Quite apart from if having pretenses to being "high brow" I think Trailer Park would be more apt.A female ghost buster from just after the 1st world war is asked to investigate ghostly sightings at a school.There are all sorts of shenanigans with ridiculous plots, sub plots and sub sub plots that will leave most viewers baffled and unsatisfied.The pacing and direction of the film is poor.Perhaps because the lead female mostly plays her part as someone desperate to get laid maybe that is why the movie is titled "the Awakening".
I just finished watching The Awakening, and I have to say I've not seen such a complete and entertaining Gothic tale since The Orphanage.While The Awakening does not have quite the depth of angst of El Orfanato, it nonetheless maintains a constant tension and audience puzzlement up until the last few minutes, when more questions than answers are evident.Rebecca Hall's Florence Cathcart, and the method used for her professional 'Ghost Busting' procedures reminded me of the scenes set in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes mythology.
In England, 1921, Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) is a Hoax exposer and is brought to a boarding school to explain sightings of a child ghost.This is a horror movie with a mystery and it reminds me of 'the others'.Movie has good performances, particularly from Rebecca Hall.Nick Murphy has done a great job as a Director and screenplay writer.Cinematography was also good for horror movie.There is a perfect balance of horror,suspense,emotions in this movie.
At times, the plotting reminded me of earlier genre-classics like "The Shining", "The Others" and especially "The Innocents", the latter based on Henry James's definitive "The Turn Of The Screw", all being concerned with the precarious psychological condition of the main character and of course of unhappy spirits from the past returning to impact on the present.The present here, though, is immediately post-war England, and the tragedy and tension of those times, with the themes of the loss of what Seigfreid Sassoon called doomed youth, the psychological (and physical) scars on those that survived the Great War while their friends perished (personified here in the character of Mallory) as well as the enmity between those that fought and those that didn't (the latter portrayed in the character of Judd, the school caretaker), loom large in the character studies presented here.At its heart however is the complex character Florence, a vintage if very young, "ghost- buster" if you will, herself bearing guilt over her part in the loss of her own soldier sweetheart, eventually takes on, at Mallory's beseeching, a new case, involving the unexplained death of a young boy pupil at a remote boarding school, supposedly haunted by an earlier pupil from years before.
The period is evoked excellently, the cold, austere boarding school in particular and the acting too is very good by all especially Imelda Taunton as the the school matron whose importance to the story becomes clearer as it progresses and particularly Rebecca Hall as the central character of Florence, her haunted eyes and blank expression well conveying the fragility of her character beneath her initially super-confident Holmes-ian demeanour.If I have a criticism, it is that the Florence character is probably too overloaded with her various neuroses plus a lot happens to her in the narrative, but as in the end, it turns out to be all about her anyway, maybe I should grant the director and writer a little more licence.Anyway, more psychologically thrilling than downright scary, this was my type of ghost film, just right for a late night viewing..
Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, and Isaac Hempstead Wright all do a great job.Pro: Great beginning and ending, good acting, and seeing Rebecca Hall naked is a plusCons: Very slow pacing, the middle part of the film is extremely slow, and an overlong runtimeOverall Rating: 7.0.
Dominic West provides a few unintentional laughs at the start but luckily improves as the film goes on, Rebecca Hall works pretty well as the cynic who starts to doubt her scientific beliefs, but overall I'd say the supporting cast were stronger than either of the leads with Imelsa Staunton up to her usual standard.
Great underrated movie about a ghost-story debunker who visits a school to investigate some goings-on there.
Skeptic Florence Cathcart(Rebecca Hall)believes it's a time for debunking ghosts.She is an author of famous book "Seeing Through Ghosts".She doesn't believe in God or any spirituality.So our ghost buster is sent to investigate their provincial boys boarding school where one of the students has died after reports of seeing the twisted spectre of young boy.The strange spectral phenomena overwhelms her as she starts digging in the past..."The Awakening" is a pretty creepy if not conventional ghost story influenced by "The Others" and "The Orphanage".The action moves slowly and there are some genuinely effective jump scares.The cinematography of Edward Grau is lush and the sound effects are great.Unfortunately the film becomes too sentimental in its second half.7 spectres out of 10..
A couple other scenes do manage to get that goose-flesh started, but it's far too little to make up for the rest of the film.There were also a couple shots I can only assume were intended to inspire that horror movie jump, but instead only managed to deliver a confusing visual spiccato effect.The storyline starts out well, defining the heroine as a strong logical woman.
These scenes were not actually romantic in any way.) Far too much of the film was wasted as a buildup for the romantic plateau, which leaves the viewer wondering if they're watching a horror movie or a romance.
An enlightened young woman by 1920s standards, she is (Cambridge) university educated, a scientist, a published author, an inferred atheist and, most shockingly of her time, wearer of trousers while barking orders at men.A professional myth buster, exposing fraudulent mediums feeding off the fear and grief in the aftermath of the First World War and influenza pandemic, she is called upon to investigate reported ghost sightings at a mansion turned boarding school- having been the scene of a long forgotten murder of course.
A good ghost movie will capture your attention within the first five minutes of the film and keep you there for the remainder of the plot.
Certain scenes are thrown in that contribute nothing to the story and indeed just muck it up, other scenes seem like outtakes where they were just experimenting with camera angles, even some characters and their actions are superfluous, and the revelation at the end really annoyed me - I have seen this same revelation many times before in other films and it is tiresome in the extreme.
But to its credit The Awakening packed a reasonable storyline to prop up a mystery and provided some attempts at scaring the audience, except that its focus centered around the main lead Florence Cathcart (Hall) and her capabilities making this more like a ghost hunter's adventures in early 20th century England, with creepy sets to boot.And Florence Cathcart is undoubtedly an interesting character, who through the course of the film transforms from a Dana Scully equivalent to a Fox Mulder believer.
A bestselling author, she gets challenged one day by a teacher of a boarding school, Robert Mallory (Dominic West) to look into a recent death of a pupil, who had claimed to have seen a ghost before he died.Reluctant at first, she takes up the challenge, brings her wares, and digs deep to try and prove that a boarding school is fertile ground for pranks to be played by its many naughty students, a thought that soon got debunked as little by little the inexplicable happens, paving way for great atmospherics set up by the filmmaking team, utilizing the sprawling mansion with its dimly lit long corridors and staircases to full effect.
But the scares never really got there, with the usual shadow play and bag of tricks used, with director Nick Murphy being quite certain to want to play up the atmosphere to raise those goosebumps, yet underwhelm in his delivery of real moments that will make your heart beat faster, nor allow you any avenue to squirm in your seat.The narrative then has enters into the school vacation period, which reduced the number of usual suspects who could have some role to play in the whole scheme of things, such as Mallory himself being a war veteran and have lived through hell on earth during WWI, the matron Maud Hill (Imelda Staunton whose make up makes her look really sinister), and the young kid Tom (Isaac Hempstead Wright) who stays behind because his parents were away.
Probably the only disbelief here in the entire movie would be her character's needless romance with Dominic West's Mallory, which was quite unnecessary if only to show that some desperate feelings develop in a cold, dark mansion with two lonely people being put together.The final scenes of the film offered up some nice little twists and surprises that prolonged the conclusion, with an epilogue that will leave you guessing right up until the last minute to see whether Nick Murphy decided to go for the jugular like other films in the genre, or to stick to a more traditional and conventional finale, and I'm glad it was what it had decided to be.
I don't think anyone expected anything good from it but as it turned out, this is simply being one fine and very atmospheric genre movie.This is not necessarily a typical horror/ghost movie but more one that relies on its mystery, rather than on its scares.
It tells its story well and keeps things interesting at all times, making this basically a good watch from start till finish.
It has some nice cinematography and also the right required settings.Another aspect I also really liked about the movie was its main character, played by Rebecca Hall.
Yes, if you have seen plenty of movies involving a ghost story already, this movie really isn't anything that new or surprising to watch but it at least, unlike some other genre examples, never really has a dull moment in it and keeps things going and interesting at all times, even when there is not an awful lot happening.
I think that this is actually the foremost reason why I ended up liking this movie so much, despite all of its still present and obvious (story) flaws and weaknesses.Simply a good genre movie, that is well worth checking out.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.nl/.
When she receives a request from school master Robert Mallory (West) to investigate the supernatural events at a remote boarding school for boys, she is suitably intrigued to take on the assignment...It comes as no surprise to find that numerous reviews for The Awakening make reference to ghost story films that were made previously.
Atmospherically Glum and Goosebumby with its well Mounted Cinematography and Stunning, Captivating, Realistic, Scientific Devices makes this Muddled Movie Forever Watchable.The Good Acting from the whole Cast Lead by Rebecca Hall and Dominic West also can Attract Attention.But after the Story Unfolds and Certain Things are Revealed, the Film just Collapses under the Weight of Ambiguity, Confusion, and a Desire to Wallow in its Own Cleverness.
Hoax exposer Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) visits a boarding school to explain sightings of a child ghost.
It's an intriguing horror movie that despite a few lousy boo scares and inconsistency with tension, it's nicely shot, packed with great performances, especially Rebecca Hall and pays off with a marvellous ending that will satisfy viewers..
Dominic West plays his part well as Robert Mallory, an employee of the school who asks Florence (Rebecca Hall) to help find a child ghost who haunts the school.
There were also a couple of genuine hair-raising scares in it - and from a ghost story, what more can you ask?I only have two minor problems with this film - 1 point off: the main female character, Florence, walks around like she is living in modern times, hair unkempt, top button undone - in 1921!
It's gorgeous to look at, cast in the shadow of the Great War, and is now fixed as one of my all-time favorite films of the ghost story genre, right up there with The Others and El Orfanato, from which it is not dissimilar in setting or tone.
It is a very sad movie with twists and turns along the way; a grown-up ghost story.
This movie is different, it's not focused on the horror or the scare, it's focused on the story of Florence Cathcart (played by the fantastic Rebecca Hall) and her drive to prove that spirits are not real and are just 'naughty little troublemakers'.
Or because the film was an outstanding ghost story and will be seen as a classic of the genre for many years to come.
The film does have an upsetting yet beautiful plot twist towards the end that plays with ideas of good and bad, real and unreal, life and afterlife – in a way that few ghost stories have managed before; that only the work of such masters of the craft as M.R.James can capture.
It all starts when Florence (Rebecca Hall) and Robert (Dominic West) have sex, till that moment the movie was great for me.
Anyway, this was a good film and if you like horror movies, this is one you should watch.
This film comes only six months after the release of "The Woman in Black," another suspenseful, atmospheric ghost story made by Hammer Studios in the tradition of classic horror movies.
It could be easily compared to The Others, Woman In Black, or even Sixth Sense and while the film has a twist ending it doesn't really come as a surprise because as many people point out there are very few new ideas in the ghost story genre.