Peril on the Screen: The Awakening

Thanks to a recommendation by reader Joanna over at DanseNoir, I watched the ghost movie The Awakening. The Awakening features a story within a story, so there’s a mystery aspect as well as a supernatural one.

As the movie opens, Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) exposes a fraudulent seance followed by the dramatic arrests of the perpetrators. Britain is reeling from the momentous losses of World War I and the flu pandemic, and grieving families are turning to mediums to contact their loved ones. Florence doesn’t believe in ghosts and has made it her life’s work to debunk spiritualists’ claims. In fact, her zeal in this regard has turned into an obsession. It soon becomes clear that this obsession is due to a traumatic childhood event.

Florence reluctantly accepts an assignment to investigate (in her mind, disprove) ghost sightings at a boys’ boarding school where a student has died. The boys believe his ghost is haunting the school with the intent of killing them all by scaring them to death. Florence is determined to reveal a miscreant among the students. Or failing that, perhaps she will discover the sullen, venomous gardener is to blame. The last thing she expects to find is a ghost.

But then, she doesn’t know, as the viewer does, that she’s playing her part in a ghost movie. Nor does she suspect that she will be forced to confront her past–a past she has repressed–in order to solve the mystery of the school sightings. And all in the company of a shell-shocked war veteran turned teacher who both attracts and repels Florence.

The Awakening is a rich period piece filled with spectrometers and light filters and glass beakers and direction sensors. All state of the art science of the Interwar period (silly me, I thought this period was known as the Edwardian era); but I like the way Joanne described it as “just like Downton Abbey, except with ghosts!”.

A cool bit of trivia. According to IMDB, the following poem excerpt from “For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon is written on the classroom chalkboard: “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.” This is an homage to the soldiers who died in World War I but also works for the affected schoolboy of the film.

Now to the ending. No, I’m not going to tell you what it is. I will tell you, however, that the directors created an ambiguous dénouement. I imagined the ending one way; my husband and daughter came up with the exact opposite interpretation. What really happens to Florence and the enigmatic teacher and the boys? Whichever camp you fall into, you’ll find ample evidence to support your claim. Watch this film with friends and then engage in a heated discussion perfect for a chilly autumn night.