L'indésirable

Greetings again from the darkness. Director Lenny Abrahamson's follow up to his stellar film ROOM (Oscar nominated for Best Picture and Best Director) is based on Sarah Waters graphic novel, and adapted for the screen by Lucinda Coxon (THE DANISH GIRL). Very early on, the film succeeds in giving viewers that "I have a bad feeling" sensation ... usually a very good sign for films in this genre.

The always excellent Domhnall Gleeson stars as Faraday, the local town doctor called out to check on the lone remaining housekeeper at Hundreds Hall. For a couple hundred years, it's been the Ayres family home, and though, in its past, a glorious fixture among Britain's elite, the home, grounds and family themselves are all now little more than a distant memory of their once great selves. When he was a mere lad, Faraday's mum had served on staff, and his memories of the grand palace are jolted by the sight of its current dilapidated state.

The Ayres family now consists of Charlotte Rampling as the matriarch who has yet to move past the death of her beloved daughter Susan so many years ago; Will Poulter as Roderick, the son who was disfigured and maimed during the war; and Ruth Wilson as surviving daughter Caroline, who seems to have surrendered any semblance of life in order to care for her mother, brother, and home ... each in various stages of ill-repair.

This is a strange family who mostly keep to themselves, well, except for Faraday who seems drawn to the family ... or is it the house? Even his romantic interest in Caroline could be seen as an excuse to regularly return to the house. His flashbacks to childhood and a festival held on the estate grounds provide glimpses of his connection, but with Gleeson's mostly reserved façade, we never really know what's going on in his head.

Part haunted house, part ghost story, and part psychological thriller; however, it's really not fully any of these. There seems to be a missing link - something for us to grab hold of as viewers. The film is wonderfully cloaked in dread and looks fabulous - replete with ominous music and a creepy old mansion. Unfortunately those things are accompanied by the slowest build up in cinematic history. "A snail's pace" is too kind as a description. The film is very well acted, but horror films and thrillers need more than atmosphere, otherwise frustration sets in with the viewer. There is little doubt this played much better on the pages of Ms. Waters' book.

This is one of those films I wish I liked more than I actually did. The Little Stranger is a tough one to recommend because I'm unsure who exactly it would play well to. Personally, I'm a big fan of slow-paced, melancholic character studies with psychological themes. Sprinkle in some horror elements too? Yes please! If there's an audience for this, it definitely should've been me. But somehow, despite all the things I appreciated-the gothic sets, thick atmosphere, subtle storytelling, restrained chills, psychological focus-the film just failed to fully engage me.

It's unfortunate because of the clear attention and care that went into making this. The acting is strong, the story taken seriously, and the themes rich. What I appreciated most was the way in which the film takes the concept of a "ghost" and re-purposes it to explore how a seminal childhood experience can profoundly impact personality development and future, potentially pathological decision making. The film is constructed to force the audience to question Faraday's motivations in his uncanny attraction to the manor and its heirs. As more about his childhood is revealed, one event in particular, those motivations slowly gain focus: does he want to make amends? transcend his own social class? resolve an unconscious conflict? make his mother proud? Probably all of the above, to some degree. And the final twist at the end of the film is quite intelligent, giving a literal, supernatural explanation for the figurative way in which Faraday's childhood self has been sabotaging his adult life.

Even still, with all of the things the film has going for it, something is amiss. I think part of the problem is that it feels like a film with an identity crisis. It's part gothic romance, part dramatic character study, part mystery, part supernatural horror, and all of these disparate elements don't quite coalesce into a harmonious whole. In trying to do so much, it ends up feeling scattered. It also doesn't do a particularly good job at creating a sense of forward momentum in its narrative. It feels plodding and inconsequential for much of its runtime and sadly just fails to compel despite the strong final moments. As much as I appreciated the themes and the craft, the experience of actually watching the film isn't as entertaining as it could or should've been. Still, I'd give it a mild recommendation if any of the above sounds appealing. If you end up bored, don't say I didn't warn you.

Solid 3/5

I'll be kind to this film in this respect: Lenny Abrahamson didn't set out to play by the usual (or at least de rigeur) rules that govern a lot of creepy-old house stories, as this is about 90% of the time a drama with some touches of very staid and not-all-there romance, and then in the last third he and his crew try their hand at a couple of sequences where some supernatural entity attacks a couple of the characters left in the Hundred's (sic) Hall in this small provincial English town (which you know is far from most civilization as characters talk of London like it's some far away distant land, and this is in the 1930's I think).

The studio who put this out may have been between a rock and a hard place: how to sell a movie that has the veneer of Gothic Horror, but doesn't have the passions of a Jane Eyre (I believe Focus Features, which also put out the 2011 Eyre, put this out too), or Crimson Peak (which I now love even more for just GOING FOR IT as far as a massively extravagant stylistic experience). And for some reason, perhaps due to the bankability(?) of Domnhall Gleeson - who I like a lot generally, especially now as General Hux in the new Star Wars - it was released on more screens than it should have been at an inopportune time. I wish it had done better in some capacity, maybe at an earlier time in the year when people might not be busy with the Back to School season, or with less awards-fare competition, but.... it may just be that it's "Alright" quality was going to leave it struggling. Not to mention that poster; like, what the hell IS that? Terrible.

Anyway, The Little Stranger isn't as dull as you've heard, at least if you stick with it past its opening half hour. Except for a somewhat nutty and make-up overloaded performance from Will Poulter, it starts off as dry as an eraser-board. Maybe some of it is due to the mood of this emotionally tight English feeling of the early 20th century, or the place this Hall is at in general, but it is hard to get into this mood at first with the color scheme on the gray side (which, yeah, again it is England on any given day, I get it). Once the plot really kicks in as far as it goes, that this Dr Faraday becomes ensconced with this family, most especially Ruth Wilson, and they showed a bit more of Faraday's backstory of his attachment (or his unspoken terror) of the Hall from when he was a boy, then I started to want to know more about what was going on and where it goes to.

And with Gleeson here, he's... good, but something I can't really vocalize or think right now holds him back somehow. That may be by design, either in the writing or from Abrahamson, but he is *so* reserved that you suspect he may be hiding something, until it is beyond the point of caring what it may be about. He may be both entirely right *and* entirely wrong for this part, if that makes sense, as a doctor who is supposed to ignite something in the Wilson character - will she leave this place, maybe marry, find some other path in life than staying in this house, and she actually has a more interesting arc in that respect than he does -but ultimately there's complications if nothing else from the Hall itself... or the perception of things going on in it. So I'm not going to say he's miscast, as he does what he can, but maybe it's some misdirection somehow, or that if there was something more in the book this was based on it never got off the page.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'll still be happy to see a performance from him that is just 'Okay' than by many others who don't rise up to the challenge. And Poulter, Wilson and Charlotte Rampling are all doing excellent work from what they're given (Wilson particularly near the end reminded me why I grew fond of her difficult character on The Affair). And the Hall itself can't help but he an intriguing location to shoot in. However, when this reaches into its last third, I can't help but feel its dips into horror take away from what would be a more... I'm not sure, emotionally complex given how much the filmmakers try to make it more about the characters than about the kind of schlocky jump scare horror effects that go out to the popcorn audiences. In other words, I get why it does become a horror movie in its last third, but something feels lost in the process.

This may seem like a higher star rating than it deserves, but I didn't dislike this film. I think Abrahamson is too skilled at making good scenes and some impactful images (i.e. Poulter burning that bookcase, the dance scene) for it to be a total disappointment. That said, after the one-two punch of ROOM and the underrated rock and roll trip FRANK, it feels like a step down in some way that's hard to articulate even after stepping out of the theater.

One of the only things that was good about this film was the scenery. The scenery was stunning in practical all the scenes. The set desgins were also lovely. The sets looked like some out of the the 1940s. Domhnall Gleeson who plays Faraday also did his best in this film. He and Ruth Wilson were the only people in this film, in my opinion that were giving it their all. They don't have much emotion to give but they did stand out jobs. Now like I said before this movie is boring. Thank God the film had something nice to look at in the background because the dialogue in this is so bland and boring. Before watching this movie I read some articles on it and apparently this film was supposed to be three and a half hours long and I could tell. There were so many awkward and terrible transtions that made no snese, like there should of been a scene there but they cut it out. I can understand cutting it down but they could of made it so it was a different time length just so we can understand the story better. Also the story was so hard to follow. It was hard to follow because they have no backstory what so ever, like I said this is based off a book. And I couldn't figure out who and or what the main villain was, and I still don't know. I don't want to go on with how bad this movie was because I could. In the end this movie is really beautifully shot and the sets look gorgeous. So if you like well shot movies and or if you read the book then I recommend you see this movie but if not avoid this movie at all costs.

Slow burn, Lost interest at parts, Good Cinematography, Well acted, Confused at ending.