Tension rises on the screen, as I am sure it
did off, as Tom Cruise's production company
leads his ex-wife through this intense
supernatural thriller. Nicole Kidman stars as
a lonely housewife with Nurse Ratched-like
rigidity caring for her two photosensitive
children in a fog-covered secluded mansion
while her husband is away fighting for
Britain in World War II. After the servants
mysteriously disappear, three reticent
replacements arrive and relieve the
increasingly maddening mother before revealing their
own life-altering secret. Imposing an eerily
slow pace with scene-stealing performances by
the entire cast, writer-director Alejandro
Amenabar instills heart-pounding anticipation
in this haunting combination of The
Shining and Flowers in the Attic
with a powerful Sixth Sense-type of
ending.