Sight&Sound - 04.2020

REVIEWS

78 | Sight&Sound | April 2019

Reviewed by Kim Newman

The puzzle of what exactly is going on in Henry

James’s ‘The Turn of the Screw’ has been chewed

over since 1898. Indeed, the framing narrative,

dropped by almost every adaptation, begins

the process of interrogating the interpretation

the unnamed governess narrator puts on

events surrounding the children at Bly House.

Among many uses of the material are Benjamin

Britten’s opera (1954), Jack Clayton’s The

Innocents (1961) and even Michael Winner’s

prequel The Nightcomers (1971), which all tackle

ambiguities ranging from what exactly the title

means to whether there really are ghosts.

Scripted by Chad and Carey Hayes, best known

for the Conjuring franchise, and directed by Floria

Sigismondi, whose last feature was The Runaways

(2010), The Turning isn’t quite a modernised

version. The setting is moved from England to

America – though this Bly estate was filmed in

Ireland – and the period is the early 1990s, signalled

by the death of Kurt Cobain, on the grounds that

any later setting would allow mobile phones

and the internet to interfere with the particular

isolation necessary for the tale to unfold. Many

tweaks to the material might put off James purists,

but they at least have the virtue of adding a few

surprises to a story that’s been adapted so many

times it’s worn thin. A different key character

dies in one of the finales, a fresh explanation is

given for the death of the malevolent Peter Quint

(a valet in the novella, here a riding instructor),

homespun housekeeper Mrs Grose (jolly Megs

Jenkins in two previous adaptations) transforms

into a sinister reincarnation of Mrs Danvers (a

haggard Barbara Marten), and Flora not Miles is

pressed to admit she can see the ghosts (this sounds

minor, but radically reshapes the dynamic).

Miles and Flora, now tagged children of

privilege and played by Finn Wolfhard (Stranger

Things) and Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project),

become a sulky drumkit-abusing teen and a gap-

toothed wicked innocent – though their first prank

(faking Flora’s drowning) makes it unbelievable

in a 1990s American context that their nanny

(willowy Mackenzie Davis) doesn’t quit and sue

the estate. The governess now has a thudding

backstory involving her own mad mother (Joely

Richardson), who is given more nightmare

prominence (“Let’s hope it’s not genetic”) than

the underwhelming spectre of the malign Quint.

Throwing in not-that-effective jump scares every

few minutes undermines any build-up of dread,

and the last reel displays indecision rather than

ambiguity as two different, bluntly literal finishes

offer an unsatisfactory multiple-choice ending.

The Turning

USA/India 2020

Director: Floria Sigismondi

Certificate 15 94m 9s

North America, 1994. Kate Mandell takes a position at

the remote Bly estate tutoring Flora Fairchild, a young

orphan whose previous live-in nanny, Miss Jessel, has

disappeared. Kate is greeted coldly by Mrs Grose, the

housekeeper, and disturbed when Flora’s slightly older

brother Miles comes home unexpectedly after being

expelled from school. Kate comes to believe that Bly

is haunted by Quint, a malevolent riding instructor

who was a bad influence on the children. Miles’s

erratic behaviour prompts Kate to consider quitting,

but she feels a responsibility to Flora. She finds Miss

Jessel’s corpse in a lake on the estate and has visions

of her being murdered by Quint, whose ghost causes

the death of his own killer, Mrs Grose. Kate escapes

from Bly with the children... only to find herself back

at an earlier point, worried that she has inherited

her mother’s insanity, that she is the threat to the

children, and that she has only dreamed the escape.

Produced by

Scott Bernstein

Roy Lee

Screenplay

Chad Hayes

Carey W. Hayes

Based on the novel

The Turn of the Screw

by Henry James

Director of

Photography

David Ungaro

Editor

Glenn Garland

Film Editors

Jane Moran

Duwayne Dunham

Production Designer

Paki Smith

Music

Nathan Barr

Production

Sound Mixer

Robert Flanagan

Costume Designer

Leonie Prendergast

©Storyteller

Distribution Co., LLC

Production

Companies

DreamWorks

Pictures, Reliance

Entertainment

present a Vertigo

Entertainment/

Chislehurst

Entertainment

production

Executive Producers

Seth William Meier

John Powers

Middleton

Cast

Mackenzie Davis

Kate Mandell

Finn Wolfhard

Miles Fairchild

Brooklynn Prince

Flora Fairchild

Barbara Marten

Mrs Grose

Joely Richardson

Darla Mandell

Niall Greih Fulton

Quint

Denna Thomsen

Jessel

Kim Adis

Rose

Darlene Garr

Holly

In Colour

[2.35:1]

Distributor

Entertainment One

Harried with children: Mackenzie Davis, Finn Wolfhard

Credits and Synopsis

Reviewed by Nikki Baughan

A Latin word meaning, literally, ‘place of life’,

a vivarium is also an enclosed area in which

animals or plants are raised for observation

and research. That’s the biggest clue that,

despite its seemly conventional focus on a

young couple attempting to put down roots

for their long-term future, Lorcan Finnegan’s

second feature, following his 2016 debut

Without Name, may not be all it appears.

That it opens with the upsetting image of

a cuckoo ejecting a baby bird and egg from

the nest it’s commandeering is another red

flag – and a neat thematic signpost – but things

soon settle into a more familiar tempo. Keen

to get on the property ladder, young urban

couple Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) and Gemma

(Imogen Poots) are tempted by strange sales

agent Martin (Jonathan Aris) to visit a new

housing development on the outskirts of

town, named ‘Yonder’. Finding a sprawling,

soulless estate of cookie-cutter homes, Tom

and Gemma are underwhelmed and, realising

that Martin has left, attempt to find the exit.

That’s when this supposed suburban idyll

begins to fracture. After driving for hours through

a confusing mass of identical streets, their car

runs out of gas and, dejected, they head back to

the house they viewed and fall asleep. The next

day is the same, and the next, and soon weeks

have passed. Every so often a box of generic

supplies – cleaning products and vacuum-

sealed meat – is delivered by unseen hands.

One day, however, the box contains a

squealing baby boy and a commanding note:

“Raise the child and be released.” The point is

well and truly made: Tom and Gemma must

forget all individual ambition and concentrate

their energies entirely on the care of this boy

(played by Senan Jennings as a youngster and

Eanna Hardwicke as a young adult). And,

bewilderingly, he grows at an exponential

rate, screams incessantly until he’s given

cereal, stares at the TV static for hours and,

weirdly, copies Tom and Gemma’s voices and

mannerisms. Behaviours that, while heightened

to fantastical levels, most parents will recognise

as containing more than a grain of truth.

That’s the real horror at the heart of Vivarium:

that the conventional idea of a perfect life is less

a template and more a trap, that parenthood

can be as much a curse as a reward. It’s not an

original thought by any means, but it’s expertly

executed. While there are elements of Yorgos

Lanthimos in Finnegan and co-writer Garret

Shanley’s deliberate skewering of domestic bliss,

the approach here is about creeping unease,

the cold resignation to an inescapable fate.

Production designer Philip Murphy has

built Yonder to be a place suspended in time,

a menacing mix of The Truman Show and The

Twilight Zone. Houses stretch to the horizon,

two-dimensional clouds seem to have been

hung in the sky. It’s packed with everything

we are told we should want – picket fences,

gleaming appliances, a ready-made family – but

it’s all cold, calculated and devoid of real life.

An edgy, scratchy score from Kristian Eidnes

Andersen heightens the uncanny atmosphere.

Tom and Gemma handle the situation in very

Vivarium

Ireland/Belgium/Denmark/USA/United Kingdom 2019

Director: Lorcan Finnegan

Certificate 15 97m 46s