The Others

Plot synopsis:
The movie begins with Grace Stewart (Nicole Kidman) waking up from a nightmare. It is 1945 in Jersey, and her husband was fighting in France but he has yet to return home, even though the war has ended. She lives in a big, creepy house alone with her two kids, Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley). Recently, around a week or two ago, all the servants just upped and abandoned them, without a word or collecting their wages.Three servants-- mute Lydia (Elaine Cassidy), Mr. Tuttle (Eric Sykes), and Mrs. Bertha Mills (Fionnula Flanagan)-- come to her door, to respond to an ad that Kidman had posted for new servants. They are all shown around the house by Grace, who explains the rules... one must never open a door without closing the previous one, and the drapes must always be shut because her children are "photosensitive"-- they break out in rashes and sores if they are exposed to light stronger than candlelight.One day, Grace goes to the mailbox and sees that the letters she'd sent out to the newspaper announcing positions are still there. She confronts Mrs. Mills angrily, demanding to know who they are.. and how did they know of the jobs if the ad hasn't even come out yet? Mrs. Mills then tells Grace that all three of them had used to live in the house, and had loved it so much that they come back to see if they could be of any use, as a house as big as Kidman's always needs extra help. When she welcomed them thinking they had answered to the ad, they just did not want to tell her otherwise.Strange things happen in the house. Sometimes, there are people talking and whispering and crying; thuds and noises come from empty rooms; Ann talks to an invisible boy, Victor (Alexander Vince), and insists that there are others walking around the house. Grace refuses to believe her, and frequently tells her to stop and punishes her for "lying"; Mrs. Mills assures Anne that she believes her and that soon her mother will see. Mrs. Mills then tells Grace that sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up in the world of the dead. Grace refuses to believe until one day, she is sewing Anne's first communion veil when she heard thuds upstairs; she races to investigate but there's no one there, and she sees in the mirror that the door is closing all by itself. Grace then goes on a hunt to seek out the intruders, enlisting her whole household (and this is the first of two or three such hunts)... she then wants her house blessed so she goes out to find the priest.Mrs. Mills races after her and tells her not to go; Grace leaves and Mrs. Mills talks to Mr. Tuttle, who's doing the lawn work; she says that eventually it'll all come out and tells him to hide these gravestones on the property. Grace gets lost in the mist and she finds her husband (Christopher Eccleston), who looks lost and very out of it, and brings him home. He won't speak or do anything except for staying in bed. Now Grace, who'd previously started to believe in the "intruders," revert back into stubbornness. Her daughter shows her the picture she'd drawn, of Victor and his parents (including a pianist father who played the piano invisibly one night) (Keith Allen & Michelle Fairley) and of the old woman, with sightless eyes. In one of her hunts for the "intruders" Kidman finds a book of photography, including this book in which there are people posed and "sleeping"-- until Mrs. Mills tells them that those people are dead, and that it's a book of the dead, which the superstitious believed would guard the souls of those dead.Grace and her daughter are putting the finishing touches on her communion dress when Grace has to leave for a moment. She comes back and is horrified to see that not only is her daughter sitting on the floor in her spotless dress, but she's become this creepy old woman-- so she grabs her daughter in a chokehold and starts to scream and hit her. The veil rips off to reveal that it is her daughter, crying; she then runs away. Grace is shaken as she thinks she's gone mad. Then going back to her husband's room, he tells her that Ann has told him of what had happened a week ago. Grace breaks down and cries and protests that it wasn't her fault; but then he tells her that he has to leave and she knows that for all of her excuses he needs something beyond her family and herself. Furthermore, her husband, who had come from within the fog dazzled and confused, finally goes away, saying that he must return to the war. Grace had told him that the war was over, to no avail: he leaves anyway.So he leaves, and the next morning the curtains are gone. The children are screaming and Grace Stewart is demanding from her three servants hysterically where they are; she even grabs a gun and threaten them and tells them to leave, because they're not helping her and they must have stolen the curtains. The children go to bed but they then climb out the window because they want to look for their father and they're kind of scared of their mother. Grace is ripping apart the house looking for curtains; she goes into the servants' rooms and finds an envelope on the bed, containing a photograph of Mr. Tuttle, Lydia, and Mrs. Mills, inscribed 1891, from the book of the dead.The mists are surrounding the island when Ann comes across the gravestones of the three servants, and then she sees them in the distance. They're approaching her and Nicholas, and they both run into the house with the servants following; Grace is there and she locks them out, and tells her children to hide while she fends them off. Mrs. Mills then tells Grace from outside the doors that it's too late, now she has to go and find them herself. Meanwhile, Nicholas and Ann run upstairs into a wardrobe, and hide but the door is thrown open to reveal a white-haired old lady with opaque eyes (Renée Asherson)... and everyone screams, including Grace who has run upstairs by now.The camera then turns to a group of people who are sitting around a table, including the old lady, now acting as the speaker of the seance. She is asking the children why they are lingering around in death? Ghostly Ann and ghostly Nicholas scream that they aren't dead, while ghostly Grace is grabbing the paper and tearing them apart, screaming too, and shaking the table, trying to get the speakers' attention. We see that the papers are flying up by themselves and that the table is shaking but don't see Grace and the kids: we can see only the startled participants of the seance, watching the blind lady scrubbling like crazy on a piece of paper in a rapture. It then stops and the old woman is snapped out of the trance.We discover what had really happened: Grace had smothered her children in their sleep, and then shot herself ("a week or two ago, the servants disappeared -- because their employer, Grace, had died"); The present occupants of the house are the pianist father (Keith Allen), mother (Michelle Fairley), and the child Victor Marlish (Alexander Vince) They three will eventually leave the house due to the hauntings of Grace and her children. The three servants had died in the TB epidemic half a century ago, and somehow, everyone still lives in the house, the living side by side with the dead. Grace admits to having done it. The next morning, when she found herself alive again and the children pillow-fighting, she thought it was another opportunity for her to become a good mother, as if her terrible actions had only been a nightmare.The movie ends as the occupants, unable to rid the house of Grace and the kids, drive away with Grace watching from an upstairs window. The sign on the gate says the house is For Sale. Grace says that she and her children will never leave the house, as they belong there.

Tags: dark, mystery, gothic, murder, paranormal, dramatic, alternate reality, horror, haunting, atmospheric, clever, claustrophobic, suspenseful

Review:
It makes the film completely opposite than other ghost stories, with Grace not afraid of the dark, and making sure to keep the light out, to save her children.
This movie is chilling, very spooky, with a few moments that will make you jump, but it's a movie that works itself up, and by the end of the movie you feel scared, and like someone has zapped you a few times, chilly from inside out, but fulfilled.People have been comparing this to "Sixth Sense".
Everything relates to everything, you are given clues the entire movie, but it's set up so masterfully the ending is the suprise you've been waiting for.The performance by Kidman and the two children are one of a kind.
It's tense, scary, and very memorable -- I don't think I'll ever forget the image of a terrified Nicole Kidman clutching her rosary beads around her shotgun as she tears down the halls of her dreadful Victorian mansion.Writer/director/composer Alejandro Amenabar creates a dark, dark atmosphere, in which you feel like you can't trust anyone.
Nicole Kidman, in her brilliant performance as Grace, is supposedly the "heroine" of the film, but as I watched the movie I found myself more frightened of her than rooting for her; steely and overbearing, with a hint of psychotic hysteria in her icy eyes.
Every time you think you have it figured out, some of the household help will pop up and throw the whole framework off-kilter.The real attraction in this film is Nicole Kidman, following up her bravura performance as Satine in "Moulin Rouge" with a woman teetering between insanity and iron control.
The screenplay is one of the best of this genre I have seen in the last few years, very carefully revised and misleading, yet at the end everything makes perfect sense, not the mention on the second time you watch it.
Nicole Kidman is Grace, a beautiful young married mother who must raise her two children, Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley) alone in their gigantic (actually, ridiculously large) mansion on a British isle, around the end of WWII.
Many people will easily become bored, feel tempted to sleep or leave, etc., but I, while not exactly enthralled by that point in the film, was still enjoying it.When we finally are treated to doses of suspense and chills (not so much horror and terror), it is satisfying.
'The Others', directed by the great Alejandro Amenabar (Abre los Ojos) is a stylish, spooky and fun film to watch that doesn't cheapen itself like so many in the genre.
First of all, i have to say that this year (2001) is the one that established Nicole Kidman as a superstar, she was an "A" actress, but here she became "A+", first and mainly with Moulin Rouge and then with this superb movie, i have to say that i saw a few people who gave this great movie a 10, i rate it with a 10 only because there is nothing higher, but i'm sure it deserves a lot of credit.And i have also seen many people complaining of the "borrowed storyline" (Comparing "the others" with "Sixth sense"), bah they touch the same topic of life (and death actually), but this one has a more religious view, and makes you think a lot about that.Nicole did a great job in this movie, nobody can't deny it, her role as a lovely but at moments almost gone crazy mother of 2 was a dualistic and strange thing that fitted perfectly well in the story.
You just want to see it again, because you experience a feeling that only a few, but a few few movies give you; a strong chill crosses your whole body, it is fear, but you like it anyway, it is a fear that awakes curiosity, curiosity for what is happening next...And what a spectacular, but necessary addition is the environment of the movie: an old mansion at the times of War world II, permanent darkness and haze, dead-like servants, photosensitive children so that the house had to be kept in an absolute darkness, no electric light........could it be more scary??
However, I was pleasantly surprised.First off, I'd like to say that I have yet to see The Sixth Sense, so I cannot comment on any similarities between the two films that I have heard exist.Grace (Kidman) and her two young photosensitive (X.P.) children live in a sprawling old house together in England in the 1940's and await the return of their father and husband who went off to fight the Germans in WWII.
Sooner or later, she will have to come to terms with what's going on...Kidman's acting is admirable in this movie, and although I usually have a hard time enjoying her films, I felt she did a very decent job here.
The film is shot beautifully and has a lot of atmosphere, partly due to the fact that since the children are photosensitive, the house must always be dark, and the director definitely likes to play with that.
I watched THE OTHERS simply because Christopher Eccleston in it , a future DOCTOR WHO in a scary movie , now this I've got to see , but to be honest Eccleston's role is little more than cameo while the always consistent Nicole Kidman isn't the real star of the movie - It's writer/director Alejandro Amenabar From the opening shots where the servants arrive at Grace Stewart's house I had the story pegged as to where it was going .
There is a slight problem though if you're familiar to Amenabar's work , especially ABRE LOS OJOS and that is that he's a master of the shock twist ending and I thought with the appearance of Eccleston's Charles Stewart half way through the movie I had the story sussed .
I actually did work out how he fitted into the story and was correct in guessing his fate but I never believed in what the twist ending was so well done Senor Amenabar There is a problem with this type of story and THE OTHERS is no different in that respect - You can only enjoy the movie once since you know the shock twist at the end when you see it a second , third , fourth time and there's another very successful film ( No clues but you'll know the one I'm talking about after you see this ) that has the same idea which means comparison's are inevitable , but it's difficult to compare to one another .
Certainly THE OTHERS has a more creepy atmosphere and probably a better pace and cast with special mention going to Alakina Mann as Anna who plays her role as a totally convincing horrid brat , nice to know Amenabar has resisted the temptation to portray the children as sugery sweet little cherubs which is often the case in Hollywood movies , you might not believe this but THE OTHERS in fact is a Spanish film.
Story-A woman who lives in a darkened old house with her two photosensitive children becomes convinced that her family home is haunted.The others is surely one of the best suspense movie ever made.Story is the uniqueness and hero of the movie.Full marks to Alejandro Amenábar for writing and directing such a wonderful movie and that too without any action scene.Nicole Kidman played role of a mother who loves her children and is perfect in her role.This may be her best movie.Both children were also good.Rest of the actors also provided the exact efforts that was required by them.Movie may seem little slow in the starting but suspense movie needs to build characters and story otherwise audience may not digest the conclusion of the movie.Just watch this movie as a regular drama horror movie and by the time this movie is finished , you will be a fan of this movie.Overall this movie can be watched again and again and is a must watch(especially for suspense thriller lovers).I give this movie 10/10.
They will live alone there with oppressive, rare and almost religious rules , until she needs to hire a group of servants (Eric Sykes as Mr. Edmund Tuttle , Elaine Cassidy as Lydia and Fionnula Flanagan as Mrs. Bertha Mills) for them .The motion picture displays genuine chills , suspense, mystery and dark atmosphere with a twisted finale .
That the kiddies have a light sensitive problem gives Amenábar the perfect excuse to keep the whole thing dimly lit: to great eerie effect.With unease in place and the small band of characters firmly established, the other key element of the film starts to kick in, namely the mystery element.
It goes back to the roots of the horror genre, employing an eerie atmosphere and mysterious characters to conjure the chilly backbone of the film.'The Others' is set in the Forties and revolves around staunchly Catholic Grace Stewart, who lives in an old mansion located on the island of Jersey with her highly photo-sensitive children ten-year-old Anne and six-year-old Nicholas.
Grace, deeply ingrained in her religious belief that ghosts don't exist, initially refuses to believe her daughter but soon she questions her faith as she can't deny there is something ominous about the house...Nicole Kidman gives an excellent performance as the almost cold and aloof Grace, who does love her children dearly even if she doesn't always show it openly.
And, of course, like in a successful suspense movie, virtually all the obscure or ambiguous points are clarified making the story incredibly coherent and after the final conclusion (which of course, I won't reveal), the very last sequences have a strong emotional power and it would take a heart of stone to resist them.
The delicate and disturbing sounds we can hear contribute to reinforce the threatening atmosphere of the film and makes us feel a little more ill-at-ease again."The Others" was released when Nicole Kidman had just divorced Tom Cruise and I had thought that she gave the image of a more mature and ambitious actress.
It is only vaguely worth it for its trick ending, and let's face it, if it didn't have an ending like that there would be nothing to the film at all.Everything plods along so slowly, and there are quite a few things which seem illogical, for example how the daughter screams wildly at some things but is very matter-of-fact about sightings of intruders in the house.Because nothing much is happening, it is only inevitable that some major shock ending is coming, and quite frankly, while it is surprising, it's not really that mind-blowing, and certainly doesn't make the whole movie worthwhile.Could have been a lot better..
I left the theater thoroughly convinced I just saw the best damn ghost story ever made.Despite having no special effects at all, and the absence of any hint of gore, Director Alejandro Amenabar managed to put together a truly creepy and chilling masterpiece.
Scenes and lines kept coming back to me, along with the impression of all of the amazing performances in the film.Tonight I watched it for the second time, sharing it with my two 13-year-old sons.
The plot is a simple ghost story that is told with confidence throughout, with a consistently subtle touch from Amenabar; to me he marked himself out as being worth watching with Abre Los Ojos and this film has only made me sure that he can produce the goods.
This movie is long and boring if you don't know the ending and if you are like most people and see it coming in the very beginning of the film then it is excruciating to sit through.
Although the set-up has some originality and there are some good performances, once you figure out the ending 'twist' (well before it's revealed, if you're smart), it becomes hard not to hate this movie for the 'been there, done that' feeling you get.I can't believe the film is so highly rated and getting such good reviews.
For the year 2001, Nicole Kidman recieved an Oscar nomination for her role in the very overrated movie "Moulin Rouge."  I thought that her performance in this ghost thriller was by far one of the best performances I have ever seen that year.
The average enthusiastic audience won't notice a few inconsistencies, amazed as they are by the "subtlety" of the movie and the "cleverness" of the final revelation, but I am annoyed by plots that have not been thought through thoroughly and disappointed there is so little discussion about these shortcomings (though it would be difficult to do so without spoilers).The actors are good (notably the little girl and the two adult servants; Nicole Kidman is sort of woody, OTOH I must admit I never liked her), the photography is fine, the scenery is expensive, there is some suspense here and there, but the pace is slow, and I cannot understand how one can call a masterpiece a movie that just uses classic devices of horror movies.
The story telling was amazing and Kidman a surprise in a movie like this, but she was great, as were all actors and actresses.
Is the house haunted?My main gripe with many horror films is that things are revealed too early on, in ghost stories you will see the ghost before any real suspense has been able to build.
With all the terrible horror movies I've seen before I was really hoping this was going to be a good one and it definitely was, with a fantastic cast and brilliant acting from all the actors and an amazing storyline it was definitely worth watching.
When I first heard of The Others, I honestly was that not interested in watching it, it's premise seemed like a generic horror flick and the plot about a mother living with her photosensitive children alone in a large house or mansion sounded as generic as it gets.
It was shocking and was so well handled and executed that it is in my opinion one of the best scenes in horror films even though the scene in retrospect is not that scary but it is the shock factor that makes that scene so great to watch.Performance wise, Nicole plays Grace, the mother of the two children perfectly, she is strict towards her children and tries to discipline them, but is also well protective of them and loves them deeply, she is also depressed about being cut off from the rest of the world due to her children's condition.
Bertha Mills who plays the nanny does a fantastic job in her role as a kind old lady but there is something that always remains mysterious about her especially in the later part of the film where she behaves oddly and it seems like that she is up to something with the other servants.The boy who plays Nicolas was actually good in his role, a kid who is scared, and is a sort of a momma's boy who is deeply attached to his mother, and he is scared about the recent haunting in the house.
And the mystery surrounding the characters is so absorbing that it immediately plunges us into such an unnerving and harrowing atmosphere that at the end of the film, whether we found relief or our hearts were still pounding, we know we'd just have lived an extraordinary experience."The Others" is set in a large mansion inhabited by a young mother, Nicole Kidman as Grace Stewart and her two children, Anne and Nicholas.
Not long into their stay, the mother believes the house is haunted by a family, however a much needed truth is pretty much twisted in a bundle of suspense and mystery...This film is great for anyone who loves to sit on the edge of their seat although you don't want to sit next to anyone who talks a lot either.
You won't find yourself shouting "don't open that door" like one does in desperation at so many awful b movie characters - you'll be looking at Ms. Kidman's face and you'll be right there with her.This film is set some fifty years ago.
With the help of the excellent dialogue they deliver an awe-inspiring performance that absolutely makes the film.Storywise, it is excellent and original in my opinion - and horror movies are my favourite, so I believe I've seen a few in my time.So if you're tired of clichés, of the group-of-teens..
Actually the whole cast is great (yes, even the boy - i am not annoyed at his acting abilities - but at what role he has to play as a character) I also liked the conclusion of the story - i am not sure if this "twist" has been used before - but for me it was quite new, especially the "tone" of it.I have just recently re-watched it (2017) - and the movie has aged incredibly well (of course mostly because it relies on atmosphere and acting, and only on very low key effects (which seem to be mostly practical - or off screen anyway) i can fully recommend this movie..
It provides a few moments of shock in the process but when you reach your destination you may find yourself looking for AnOther.Grace (Nicole Kidman) mother of two young children and mistress of the house opens the film with a frightening scream setting up audience expectation for something really eerie that really never materializes.
It's like The Ring (in as good PG-13 rated horror films).I love this movie because it's like Lost, in which subtle clues are given away little by little until it reaches the twist ending.
If not, don't try to think some up or you'll get mad at the graceful pace the film is moving.Nicole Kidman gives a really great performance in here, as well as many other characters.