The Others (film)

Los otros (in English The Others) is a 2001 Spanish-American film directed by Spanish-Chilean Alejandro Amenábar and starring Nicole Kidman. It won eight of the fifteen Goyas for which it was nominated, including Best Sound, Best Cinematography, Best Direction, and Best Film. Together with Días contados (1994) and Cell 211 (2009) (also with 8 awards), it is fourth on the list of films with the most Goya awards.

Plot

The year is 1945 and World War II has just ended, Grace (Nicole Kidman) awaits the return of her husband, who is fighting in the war. Grace is a woman of strong religious beliefs who lives in a remote mansion located on the Island of Jersey in the English Channel, with her children Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley), who suffer from a strange disease called photosensitivity, that prevents them from maintaining contact with light.

In response to an advert from Grace for house cleaning and babysitting services, new servants arrive one day: Mrs. Bertha Mills (Fionnula Flanagan) and Mr. Edmund Tuttle (Eric Sykes), along to a mute young woman named Lydia (Elaine Cassidy). Since the servants had already worked years before in the house and in need of someone to take care of the chores, Grace agrees to hire them.

While showing the new guests around the mansion, Grace warns them of the strict rules they must follow, especially one: all rooms must remain dark, so they must not open a door without closing the previous one. For this, she gives them a set of 15 keys that open the 50 doors in the house. Another of the rules that they have to follow rigorously is to close the curtains in the rooms, in such a way that not even a beam of light enters, since Anne and Nicholas are photosensitive and could even die from it, according to Grace..

The day to day in the house passes quietly between the housework and the garden, and the severely religious studies that Grace teaches her children, who are still waiting for the return of their husband and father. In the meantime, Grace is afraid that any shock could affect her children; which, especially the girl, warn the mother that ghosts live there. It will be then, and after perceiving strange noises, when Grace tries to find out what is happening in the mysterious mansion.

Full cast

• Nicole Kidman like Grace Stewart.
• Fionnula Flanagan Like Bertha Mills.
• Christopher Eccleston Like Charles Stewart.
• Alakina Mann like Anne Stewart.
• James Bentley like Nicholas Stewart.
• Eric Sykes like Edmund Tuttle.
• Elaine Cassidy Like Lydia.
• Renée Asherson like the old woman.
• Gordon Reid like the assistant.
• Keith Allen like Mr. Marlish.
• Michelle Fairley like the lady. Marlish.
• Alexander Vince like Victor Marlish.
• Ricardo López like the second assistant.
• Aldo Grilo like the gardener.

Production

Palace of the Hornillos, in Las Fraguas (Cantabria), where the exteriors of the film were shot.

After viewing Amenábar's second film, Open your eyes, the American actor Tom Cruise was enchanted by the story and decided to make an American version. Cruise, who wanted to exploit the skills of the director of Thesis, asked him to direct the adaptation entitled Vanilla Sky, but he flatly refused. When the The Others project came to him, Cruise bought the rights and Amenábar did agree to let Cruise and the Weinstein brothers from Miramax produce his film. He imposed a condition: filming in Spain with his team.The locations chosen for filming were Las Fraguas, in Cantabria, and Madrid.

A reference in the film is the works of Alfred Hitchcock, right down to the fact that Amenábar turns Nicole Kidman into a frightened blonde, a bit like Grace Kelly, reminiscent of the famous blondes that appeared in his movies. Amenábar also refers to one of the dialogues from his own film Thesis , when Anne tells her brother «My name is Anne and I'm walking. I'm walking and my name is Anne».

Although the film is not inspired by any story, it is influenced by the work Another Turn of the Screw by Henry James. Amenábar has not denied this resemblance and suffered several jokes when he was nominated for a BAFTA for best original screenplay, although the plot of the film and the novel do not have much in common. The plot of the film also bears similarities to the short story They ("They", published in Traffics and Discoveries in 1904) by Rudyard Kipling. The person in charge of taking the photography, who has a fundamental role in the film, was Javier Aguirresarobe. In fact, in 1959 a version for television of Henry James's work entitled "The Others"

Reception

Ticket office

The film was first released in August 2001 in the US, where it was met with critical and public acclaim. On September 13 of the same year, it was released in Spanish theaters, becoming the most watched Spanish film to date with 6,410,561 viewers and one of the 400 highest grossing films in history with almost US 210,000,000 grossed worldwide. world.

Awards and nominations

Goya Awards

Medals of the 2001 Film Writers Circle

Golden Globes Awards