It was on TV, so I watched. I liked how good the element of suspense was, and the creepy-as-all-hell children, and even though I already knew the ending (and could kinda see it coming anyways) I still came out feeling I saw an okay movie. Too bad there wasn’t a big scare to it -fer instance, my brother came by later and told me he saw Psycho with his girlfriend, and they really enjoyed the movie together, even laughed at some parts (sick bastard that he is). The Others didn’t have anything to compare with the shower scene, except maybe the part where the kids are in the warddrove and finally the director does something about the suspense and has a scary old lady open the warddrove door.
Ahem. Back on subject, I think I’m missing something with the plot here. I’m pretty sure they were all living inside a big house in England, and the country was occupied by Germans for five years, but the husband was still fighting at the front in France. What?
I thought they were in the Channel Islands somewhere. The husband wasn’t fighting, he was killed. That’s why you see his ghost in the fog near the end.
The film is set after the war has ended and the Germans no longer occupy the island, but to Kidman’s character (and her kids), the war is still going on and her husband is still away at the front.
The husband was something that I’d wondered about. Did the three servants cause him to come back in order to jar Kidman into realizing she was dead? Did he know he was dead, but was stuck haunting the spot where he’d been killed?
I believe there was also meant to be an implication that she had collaborated (or at least offered no resistance) with the occupying Germans, and was repressing her guilty feelings over this. This gets reflected in how angrily she reacts to the daughter saying she (the daughter) would deny Christ to avoid trouble from the Romans.
Overall, I was pretty impressed with this one. In particular, the scene where Kidman is walking through the room with sheets hung over everything, hearing distant voices drift in and out (“I think she can hear us…”) creeped me out very nicely.
The thought that they were on a Channel island had never hit me until now, friedo. I was stuck thinking they were on some alternative history where the Germans had invaded and occupied England, and that really threw me off.
But on the other hand, she said the last time she saw her family was summer of 1940, just before the invasion. That, to me, implied something greater than an occupation of Jersey.
I really think a spoiler alert should have preceded this statement. :mad:
The only thing working against The Others, for me, was the similarity of its denoument to The Sixth Sense- also a superb, intelligently crafted spook story. Had it been released a year or two earlier, The Others would have been the movie everyone was talking about in much the same way that Sixth Sense was. Imho.
Again I’ll say, as I say in an thread about this movie, that The Others was practically a remake of–certainly at least a tribute to–The Innocents. You can’t really get all there is to get out of the former without also seeing the latter.
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Originally posted by lissener
Again I’ll say, as I say in an thread about this movie, that The Others was practically a remake of–certainly at least a tribute to–The Innocents.
That’s very misleading. No wonder Moody Bastard thinks you spoiled it. There are similarities (2 creepy kids, woman with blonde hair, older servant woman, big house in the country, lots of fog) but I don’t think the word “remake” should have been in your post. Story-wise they’re nothing alike.
Mood, feeling, atmosphere, yes. Tribute, yes, I would agree with that. Both excellent movies, yes. Remake in any sense of the word, no.
My use of “remake” was perhaps misleading: I meant it hyperbolically. I meant to suggest that the later movie owes so much to the earlier movie in tone, texture, images, sounds, even characterizations, that it’s just this side of a remake. All it’s missing is the story; it borrowed everything else almost intact.
My use of “remake” was perhaps misleading: I meant it hyperbolically. I meant to suggest that the later movie owes so much to the earlier movie in tone, texture, images, sounds, even characterizations, that it’s just this side of a remake (note I said “practically” a remake). All it’s missing is the story; it borrowed everything else almost intact.
Sorry, Moody, but I thought after a movie gets to be three years old it’s past the point where you need spoiler warnings. Especially in a thread where the op has a question about the plot. Either way, I’m sorry if I spoiled the movie for you.
