For the uninitiated - the handful of other people who'll read this who aren't my Mum and Dad - my folks live in London and occasionally operate under the traditional London delusion that what goes for London goes for the rest of the UK. Cinema is one of the many areas of life for which this really doesn't work. Many smaller films that are released in London may never see the inside of a screening anywhere outside the west end, and when they do it's sometimes for a week only at an obscure cinema in Henley. 'The Awakening' is a case in point. Despite getting a heavy release across inner London locations, it was briefly available in some non-London cinemas - but not at a time when I was paying attention. So when my parents asked me if had I seen it, the answer was no - I'm not going to pay £13 and spend an hour on a train to London for one film.
Last week I was saved by the DVD and eventually able to watch this atmospheric thriller / ghost story set largely in a Cumbrian boarding school post WW1. Rebecca Hall plays Florence Cathcart, a ghost-hunter who doesn't believe in ghosts. We are introduced to her as she exposes a group of charlatans ripping people off and pretending to be able to speak to the dead. Each time she reveals a so-called medium to be a fraud though, she gets a little further from what she really wants. You see, Florence's sweetheart was killed in the trenches of the western front; so at the heart of everything she does Florence harbours a secret desire that the paranormal will be real and that she can speak one last time to her beloved. When she takes on the job to prove that the 'ghosts' at the Cumbrian boarding school are little more than naughty boys playing pranks, at first she finds no difference between this an other jobs she has taken. Soon though she finds herself drawn back to places and events in the school that she cannot explain. Perhaps there are ghosts here after all? Perhaps her dead sweetheart will finally be able to give her the final message she craves so much?
Before I get into the film's good points - some criticism. Is the main character in any way realistic? Did independent, intelligent, Cambridge-educated single women exist in the early 1920s? Wasn't this the age of the Suffragettes throwing themselves under the king's horse to get voting rights? By pretending that an inter-war Dana Scully could have existed, the film doesn't do any service to the memory of the women who fought to be accepted into a male-dominated world. Admittedly many of the characters who meet Florence express mild interest in her independent success, but no-one has outright incredulity. And it's not just the characters that make the film less believable, should a film really be able to get away with an opening caption that says basically: "The first world war just happened, so there are lots of dead people and therefore loads more ghosts - get over it." If you're going to have a ghost film then just get on with it, there's no need to conduct a dubious historical justification!
Despite these small points, 'The Awakening' is a film that does a fair job of juggling several ideas at the same time and maintaining a tension that goes right through to the end. A perennial problem with horror films is that it's difficult to generate tension after you reveal what's causing the horror, but that if you never actually show anyone anything it can get tedious. 'The Awakening' gets around a lot of these problems by creating a personal tension between the characters, and also having a lead in Florence who is in the unusual role of rejecting the concept of the paranormal while desperately hoping it's real (it's hard to get away from the Scully comparison isn't it?). Florence's vested interest in everything she does makes her simultaneously strong and fragile - she might have all the answers, but you feel she's permanently on the verge of cracking up.
'The Awakening' has a lot of nice touches, several scary moments and very disturbing dollhouse theme; but I was left at the end of the film thinking - does this really hold together? I still have a nagging doubt that there is a plot hole somewhere I'm not seeing, and that it would all unravel if I were unlucky enough to spot it. Despite the film's many good points, in the end I thought most of its plot reveals were too much of a convenience to be taken seriously. I also thought that the collateral damage of the big 'reveal' spoiled Florence's emotional journey and got in the way of her search for closure. Disappointing that after investing so much in developing the characters, the writers felt happy to let their stories slide away at its conclusion. This is a film that had a huge promise and was great for the most part, but ultimately I felt let down its viewers.
Ok: So the Scully comparison is undeniable. Apart from that, the script is pretty original.
ReplyDeleteHistorical inaccuracies are prevalent throughout fiction and screen. At least in The awakening, the lead female role is a strong and positive one.