Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

So... It's really difficult to find a director and a script writer with fewer imagination and lack of drama perception. SCRIPT WRITER: I was actually shocked to discover that Christopher Hampton, the script writer, is Oscar winning. I admit I never saw Dangerous Liaisons but I did see Atonement and I liked it dearly. Yet this script lacks everything expected from a script writer of this amplitude. The way he lost momentum of what in the book are most carefully threaded subplots, some of the dialog not only simply obliterated, but, worse, amputated, characters unreasonable modified or even excluded altogether in a most uninspired way... all tat is absolutely disconcerting. I never expected a movie to follow every letter of the book it's based upon, but there is a limit to which you are bound if you want your movie to hoover around the same level of quality the book does. Christopher Hampton though, thought different. I'm under the impression that he wrote this script in the most unprofessional way he could ever write a script, in the manner one would do if one forgot about the deadline and remembered it the day it should have been delivered. Script wise, the movie is a complete shame on Christopher Hampton's panoply. DIRECTOR: If I was Diane Setterfield I would be very unsatisfied by how this movie turned out. But I think more than being disappointed by the script writer, I would be so by the director. James Kent directed more than one movie based on a book. One of them - I loved the book but I HATED the movie - is 11.22.63. Not gonna comment it here though. The distracted way in which The Thirteenth Tale was directed is disconcerting. Unbelievable how actors like Vanessa Redgrave's or Olivia Colman's acting was reduced to utter amatorism by this director. The same sensation I experienced watching 11.22.63 which I already mentioned. James Franco looked like an impotent amator, not like the great actor he actually is. The only actress that resisted this mutilation of talent and turned out completely untainted was Sophie Turner. Thumbs up for her - and not the first time, either. The location of the filming is superb - I've been in the area (not seen the actual park, only Helmsley) and just like probably most of the countryside England, it is breathtaking - yet this doesn't transpire from the movie. The scenes concentrate on debilitated characters instead of the majesty of the land. A house that is the actual centre in the book for most of the plot is barely filmed here and there and that's only an example. So, considering the two main things that can make a movie an Oscar winning one or a simple celluloid pulp - just, as, unfortunately, The Thirteenth Tale is - scripting and directing, were impossibly idiotic this time. Hence my recommendation: don't watch the movie if you read the book, unless you are a script writer or a director and you want to learn what not to do when doing your job. Or, better yet, just read the book and forget the movie. You'll have more to win like that.

This is really one of my favorites I've seen throughout the year of 2013.Cinematography 8/10: The cinematography is beautiful. Most of the shots and standpoints in this film were well done.Characters 7/10: Throughout this film, the characters were well- developed, but not every character was interesting and had no real background.Plot 9/10: This movie had a very good plot, there wasn't any plot holes from my perspective and it was an intriguing ride.Cast 8/10: The cast was well-chosen and all had a very good performance. I've always been a fan of Vanessa Redgrave and this performance of hers as Vida Winter was incredibly well done.Conclusion: This movie is great and I give it an 8.25/10.

I love Gothic. I have been steadily reading my way through the back-catalogue of greats from Le Fanu through Poe, M R James to Will Self. I like not just to read and enjoy, but to carry a story with me forever. For that to happen the story has to get inside of me; it has to creep in slowly under my skin, and then shake me up from the inside. The Thirteenth tale does just that. From the off, the makers employ all the best Gothic themes in order to summon feeling; the grand but degenerate house,wildly baroque gardens,sense-memory flashbacks, costume, unheimlich twins. It adds to the tension with filmic techniques- the pared down narrative,filters, uncanny usage of colour,slow close-ups and misty long-shots. The result is pure feeling. For me, the feeling begins as mystery and a slow sense of disorientation and unreality, but develops through anxiety, into something unnameable strange and completely absorbing. This film is pure Gothic. I feel alarmed, I feel shaky. This film will live with me for a while yet.

This BBC psychological thriller drew on most of the established "givens" in what appeared to be a classic ghost story, with a big creepy house, a troubled governess, mysterious deaths, brooding Yorkshire moors, emotionally disturbed children and of course sightings of a ghostly lady in white. In fact, the twist is that it manages to subvert all these clichés and still produce a gripping story which holds the viewer until the end.Perhaps the story had a little too much going on, what with Olivia Colman's character's own big childhood secret ("everyone's got one", as Vanessa Redgrave's dying narrator repeatedly tells her), the romance between the married doctor and the fretful governess and the Agatha Christie-like succession of unexplained and apparently uninvestigated deaths, but with atmospheric direction and fine acting by the two leads in particular, both of whom resist the temptation to ham it up, they successfully draw the viewer into these improbable events.Yes, the twist about the mysterious twin sisters is fairly transparent from early on and it fails to deliver even one "jump out your chair" moment, but the story carefully explains away all the loose ends it throws up by the fiery conclusion. As I said the story's not exactly original, as becomes obvious when Colman twice on her own visits the old haunted house in time-honoured Tippi Hedren fashion, but my eyes were pretty much glued to it throughout, if not quite through my fingers I must say.