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The Others

Release Date: 
Friday, August 10, 2001
Rated: 
MPAA: PG-13
Star Rating: 
★★★½
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again—sometimes keeping a movie simple is the best way to go. The Others is a good, old-fashioned ghost story shot through with neat gothic touches and just enough mystery to keep you involved. It’s so tight that not even Nicole Kidman can sink it (which is saying a lot).

Taking place shortly after World War II on the isle of Jersey (that’s near England, not Newark), The Others tells the story of an emotionally unstable young mother dealing with a lost-and-presumed dead soldier husband and two sickly children. She hires some servants to tend to her mansion (which, bathed in fog and surrounded by dead trees, just screams “haunted!”) while plenty of things go bump in the night. More “creepy” than “scary,” The Others plays like a great fireside spook tale. It rarely descends into shock value and cheese, and it rewards with an ending that works, even if you have paid attention close enough to see it coming. The only thing we’d have done differently is release this movie in October instead of August—it’s definitely more Halloween than late-summer fare.