The Awakening

Year of Release:  2011

Director:  Nick Murphy

Screenplay:  Stephen Volk and Nick Murphy

Starring:  Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton, Isaac Hempstead-Wright

Running Time:  107 minutes

Genre:  Horror

The year is 1921 and Britain is reeling in the aftermath of the First World War and the Spanish Flu pandemic.  Interest in spiritualism is high as grieving people search for any shred of hope.  Florence Cathcart (Hall) is a controversial author who specialises in debunking alleged hauntings and exposing fraudulent mediums.  She is contacted by Robert Mallory (West), a teacher at a boy's boarding school, who wants her to investigate sightings of the alleged ghost of a boy, which might be connected to a recent death at the school.  Reluctantly Florence agrees.  However, as her investigation proceeds she soon comes to believe that the ghost may be more real than she thought, and more dangerous.

This film is essentially an old fashioned ghost story with an additional mystery element.  It's a mostly slow, sedate film that relies more on atmosphere than gory thrills, and it does have a real doom-laden feel to it.  It's set in the years following the First World War and Spanish Flu outbreak, where people are searching for something to hold on to and there was an increase in belief in the supernatural and spiritualism was at it's height, as grieving people were desperate to contact the people they had lost.  Robert Mallory was in the war and experiences survivor's guilt, whereas the school's groundskeeper, Judd (Joseph Mawle) didn't fight in the war and feels guilty and resentful towards Mallory for being seen as a war hero.    The film opens with Florence exposing an elaborate fake seance and, as the fraudulent mediums are lead away by the police, she is slapped in the face by the grieving mother who had paid for the seance, and has had her last hope ripped from her.  She receives angry letters from people enraged by her book which debunks the supernatural and any idea of an afterlife.  However Florence herself has a deep need to believe, and she investigates mediums an hauntings desperately hoping to find one that is genuine.  The film uses a washed out colour palette, and everything looks gloomy, grey and cold, and almost everyone in the (all white) cast looks practically translucent.  The film was directed by Nick Murphy, whose background is largely in television, and indeed it does often look and feel like classy TV movie although it did have a theatrical release.  The script was written by Murphy and horror veteran Stephen Volk, who is most famous for writing the controversial BBC drama Ghostwatch (1992), and it is reminiscent of the works of  M. R. James, Ramsey Campbell, Shirley Jackson and Henry James.  The film falls apart somewhat towards the end where there are several twists that defy credibility, and feel like they belong in a different film, and there is also a disturbing and intense scene where Florence is attacked.  The ghost boy, with his distorted face, is only glimpsed briefly and at first it's startling but let down by unimpressive special effects.  Rebecca Hall is very good as Florence, and the film is worth seeing for her performance alone.  Dominic West is good in his typically gruff, period drama role as the teacher, turned paranormal investigator, even if he would rather be investigating Florence.  Imelda Staunton is as impressive as ever in the supporting role of housekeeper Maud, who is a fan of Florence's work.  Isaac Hempstead-Wright, who is probably most famous as Bran Stark in Game of Thrones (2010-2019), plays a   lonely pupil who forms a bond with Florence.  This is a far from perfect film, but then it is by no means bad either.  It has some great performances, particularly Rebecca Hall's.  It's certainly worth watching if you're a fan of elegant ghost stories.

Rebecca Hall in The Awakening
 

The Night House

Year of Release:  2021

Director:  David Bruckner

Screenplay:  Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski

Starring:  Rebecca Hall, Sarah Goldberg, Evan Jonigkeit, Stacy Martin, Vondie Cutis Hall

Running Time:  110 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Following the death of her husband Owen by suicide, Beth (Hall) is left alone in their large lakeshore house trying to put her life back together again.  As she organises her husband's possessions, Beth finds herself haunted by strange dreams, from which she wakes in different parts of the house to where she went to sleep. The drams lead to clues that Owen had been leading a secret double life.  As strange phenomenon increase, Beth becomes convinced that she is being haunted, and not just by her husband.

This is a dark, sombre supernatural mystery.  For the most part it is a slow burning, genuinely creepy, intelligent ghost story, with an intriguing mystery, however in the last twenty minutes or so it falls into more conventional horror movie territory, which while it does have some good chills, feels slightly disappointing compared to what has gone before.  The film is elevated by a fantastic performance by Rebecca Hall who is in almost every scene, and often on her own.  She gives a brittle performance as the recently widowed Beth, and doesn't really soften the edges, as she pushes away friends and family who try to reach out to her, and the mixture of grief and rage is never far from the surface, mixed with her increasing obsession over the mystery of her husband's double life.  The film frequently features her alone in this vast, but very modern house, wreathed in shadows, where you glimpse furtive darker shadows among the shadows.  It may not stand up to scrutiny, but the mystery is an involving one.  This is an above average creepy tale, which does let itself down a bit in the last twenty minutes or so, which rushes to answer all the questions, and falls victim to some silly plot contrivances, however it does have some effective special effects work, and even if the finale is a little disappointing, by then we are too involved in Beth's story not to feel invested.

Rebecca Hall in The Night House

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women

Year of Release:  2017
Director:  Angela Robinson
Screenplay:  Angela Robinson
Starring:  Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall, Bella Heathcote, JJ Feild, Oliver Platt, Connie Britton
Running Time:  108 mintes
Genre:  Biography, drama

The film tells the story of Professor William Moulton Marston (Evans), an American psychologist, inventor and writer, who is best known for inventing an early version of the lie detector and creating the comic book character Wonder Woman.
The story begins in 1928 where Martson and his wife, Elizabeth (Hall), teach and research together at Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges.  The two fall in love with their teaching assistant, Olive Byrne (Heathcote), one of William Marston's students.  Olive reciprocates their feelings, and the three enter into a polyamorous relationship.  Their unconventional relationship leads to severe problems for their personal and professional lives.  Meanwhile William Marston continues his work on his DISC (Dominance, Inducement, Submission, Compliance) theory of human interaction and becomes increasingly interested in  fetish art and bondage, which he channels, along with his belief in the inherent superiority of women over men, into the comic book Wonder Woman.

This is a biographical drama, it's not really a film about Wonder Woman.  The main story of the film is told in flashbacks as Marston gives evidence in 1945 to a committee who are seeking to ban Wonder Woman over it's sexual, sadomasochistic and queer imagery and subtext.  It's very well made, beautifully filmed, very well cast, with an intelligent, witty script that shines a light on a fairly obscure but fascinating piece of pop-culture history.  Personally I would have liked to have seen more about the comic book industry of the time, but that is not the story that they are telling.  In fact, Wonder Woman itself is more of a subtext in the film, the framing device notwithstanding, it's not until pretty late in the film that comics come into it in a big way.  The focus is mostly on the relationship between the central trio:  Luke Evans certainly looks the part of the 1920s academic, and plays Marston as an earnest idealist; Bella Heathcote is radiant as Olive Byrne who captivates both Marstons, and she is very good, particularly in the early part of the film where she has the greatest emotional heft playing a naive young woman whose entire world is capsized as she explores her new feelings, although she has less to do later in the film, but Rebecca Hall takes the acting honours as the fierce, funny and caustic Elizabeth, the realist of the three.  She is brilliant.
It may not have enough about Wonder Woman to appeal to some of the fans, and the comic book element may put off some viewers, but it is definitely worth giving it a go.

Rebecca Hall, Luke Evans and Bella Heathcote in Professor Marston and the Wonder Women