4K UHD Blu-ray Review: Alejandro Amenábar’s The Others on the Criterion Collection

Right from the start, one gets the sense that something’s amiss in Alejandro Amenábar’s The Others. Three servants emerge from the fog that cloaks an estate on the Channel Island of Jersey to apply for jobs we soon learn weren’t yet listed in the local newspaper. Meanwhile, the imposing head of the household, Grace (Nicole Kidman), is perpetually on edge. When she instructs the new help to keep the curtains drawn at all times and always shut and lock every door behind them, it’s unclear whether her neuroses actually stem from the condition that supposedly prevents her two children from being in the sunlight for more than a few seconds or if it’s a calamitous side effect of her rigid Catholic beliefs.

It’s a familiar setup, but The Others doesn’t follow the same path of so many other horror films about women succumbing to madness in huge Victorian-era homes. Grace is, like many women in those stories, without her husband at home—he’s yet to return, and despite World War II having recently ended—but it’s young Anne (Alakina Mann), not Grace, who first senses the presence of something strange in the house, specifically a young boy named Victor (Alexander Vince), whom she occasionally sees and converses with at night. Despite ever-mounting evidence that Anne isn’t lying, Grace staunchly clings to her own preconceived notions of reality and the biblical declaration of a clear delineation between the living and the dead.

Indeed, the more things take a turn for the bizarre and inexplicable across The Others, the more Grace insists that everything is normal. The epitome of repression, Grace holds so tightly to her own assumptions that she’s the last one to sense that something strange is afoot. But for all her attempts at self-containment and control—over both herself, her children, and the domestic space—the forces at work inside their house cannot and will not be restrained by her need for silence and strict order. And much of the tension and suspense that the filmmakers further generate is intensified by Grace’s strongly held beliefs being repeatedly challenged.

Much of the film’s pleasure, too, comes from watching the troubled woman’s icy exterior melt away. Amenábar and Kidman are careful not to present Grace merely as cold and unfeeling, and the subtle warmth and vulnerability that Kidman captivatingly brings to the character ably elicits our sympathies for her. Kidman’s complex performance may be the highlight of The Others, but this fairly traditional ghost story also benefits from Amenábar’s elegant direction and deliberate pacing. Even upon its release, there was something old-fashioned about the film beyond its direct nods to both Robert Wise’s The Haunting and Jack Clayton’s The Innocents. Composed mostly of wide and medium wide shots and unshowy camerawork, The Others in some way operates in the so-called “invisible style” of classical Hollywood, but like its influences, the film is masterful in its evocation of mood and atmosphere.

At one point, Grace remarks, “The only thing that moves here is the light, but it changes everything.” She’s referring to the stillness of everything else in the house, but she could just as well be referring to the work of cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe, who uses the shifting light patterns within candlelit rooms and from one room to the next to continually evoke the ethereal and the spectral, and primarily without the aid of camera tricks or CGI. The deliberateness and exactitude of The Others’s look mirrors that of its heroine, and it’s part of what makes her inevitable untangling all the more absorbing.

That the revelation that strikes Grace at the end of the film comes in the form of a rug-pulling twist—akin to those popularized by Fight Club and The Sixth Sense only two years prior—perhaps diminishes The Others in some respect. But even knowing what’s coming in the end, Amenábar’s film still effectively spins a spooky tale of grief, alienation, and repression, and it would be just as unsettling and thematically sound even if the twist were written out of it.

Image/Sound

The Others is rife with shadows and scenes shot primarily with natural light, and Criterion’s 4K disc ensures even the minutest of modulation in color or shade is visible, maximizing the beauty and suspense of countless scenes. The image detail impresses even deep in the background of wide shots, yet this clarity sacrifices none of the texture of the initial 35mm footage. The color balancing is as nuanced as it is naturalistic, while grain is consistent and even. This may be the best a modern film has looked on a Criterion 4K release. The Dolby Atmos audio is nearly as superb as the image, with every creak, slam, and gust of wind perfectly placed within the mix.

Extras

In his audio commentary, recorded in 2022, Alejandro Amenábar discusses his writing and directing processes on The Others at great length, going into his collaborative work with his actors and cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe as well as how he weaved the film’s themes into his script. In a fascinating new conversation with film critic Pau Gómez, Amenábar opens up about his own religious beliefs and how some of his own childhood experiences, including a séance with his aunt and being educated by Piarist priests, informed the themes of this film. There’s also a new program from Studiocanal UK, “Reflecting on The Others,” in which Amenábar talks about finding funding and scouting locations for the film, while Nicole Kidman and Christopher Eccleston praise the director’s strong instincts as a writer-director.

The remaining extras are all archival, including a behind-the-scenes featurette and two more focusing on specific elements of the filmmaking: art direction and visual effects. Meanwhile, a brief featurette about the process behind taking the photographs of the dead, used for a prop in the film, is particularly interesting. Also included is audition footage, seven deleted scenes, and a trailer, as well as a booklet and essay by scholar Philip Horne, who astutely argues that The Others is an inversion, rather than a remake, of Jack Clayton’s The Innocents.

Overall

Criterion’s flawless 4K presentation of The Others offers the perfect reminder of the intoxicating, subtly ominous beauty of Alejandro Amenábar’s film.