Highly Overrated But Still Good

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Jodhi May is the unnamed mistress in this fine adaptation of Henry James' novela. She's about perfect for the part of the virginal governess assigned to manage two young children and the country estate of a distant magnate who finds kids boring. She's not Deborah Kerr's frightened governess with the quavering voice in "The Innocents," but just as suitable. She has dark eyes that are liquid and perceptive, and two plump lips which are usually slightly open. This lends her features a slightly dazed look. Her movements are deliberate and her seraphic voice beneficent. She seems intent on bringing purity wherever she goes. May is quite attractive and she was educated at Oxford. I'm considering sending her a proposal of marriage. Well, after all, if she can't get the tycoon who hired her, why not get the next one that comes along? On the other hand, all that virtue -- I really like the character and the way James handled it -- just the right balance between corruption and madness. Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper, tries to help but she's illiterate and stuffy and has fixed ideas about the two children -- both of them are angels. Flora, the eight-year-old girl, is a cute blond out of Matisse. Miles, the ten-year-old boy who was just expelled from his boarding school for reasons never explained, is a handsome kid. Of course, if you believe the narrator, they're both pustular with unquiet spirits but then aren't they all? Over time, the two little angels start acting queer -- standing like stone statues in the garden at midnight, cleverly ambiguous answers to straightforward questions, kissing May fully on the lips, things like that. May becomes convinced that there are two evil spirits, Quint and his pregnant paramour, Miss Jessel, that are sneaking around and giving the kids lessons on debauchery. The ghosts are closing in. The problem is that, although the kids act suspiciously, no one has actually seen or admitted seeing any ghosts. The unimaginative Mrs. Gross begins to doubt that anything sinister is going on. And May begins to look even more batty than Deborah Kerr did.Then, by means of some anfractuous logic that I've never understood, May sends poor distressed Mrs. Grose and Flora off to London, saying, "Leave the boy with me." She informs the scullery maids that she alone is in charge now, "And I run a tight ship." Hmm. What is going on? Who's possessed around here -- and by what? Before confronting Miles that night, she kneels and prays for victory over the spirits, pointing out to God that it only takes one more turn of the screw for virtue to prevail. "With your aid, Lord, I'll wring it out of him." At that point I began to wonder if "The Turn of the Screw" didn't belong to a sub-genre that was popular around the turn of the century -- a post-Darwinist but pre-Freudian pitting of suppressed impulses against strict Victorian custom , rather like "Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde" or, more broadly, religion versus science.The climactic reveal reveals nothing much. The death isn't organic to the plot, and the main question -- is May nuts or are the kids evil? -- is left hanging.

I had heard of 'TURN OF THE SCREW' and thought it sounded interesting. The novel may well have been, however, I found this adaptation grew more tiresome the longer I watched. The first time I saw Quint on the tower, I was intrigued, but by the end I'd lost all interest and couldn't wait for it to finish. This adaptation appears to have neither rhyme nor reason, and is often confusing, revealing no real explanation for any of the characters actions/reactions. Caroline Pegg who plays the starring role has a terrible posture, craning her neck out literally the whole time, her mouth open in disbelief for the vast majority of the film (seemingly her only other expression). Her acting is at best average. A lot of her dialogue sounded ridiculous. I wouldn't waste your time with this one.

I read "Turn of the Screw" over 20 years ago but I recall that it struck me as dead boring. I watched this adaptation in the hopes the story would grow on me over the years. Alas! The film has lovely sets, costumes, and music. It occasionally has decent acting. But overall it can be watched on fast-forward most of the time and not lose anything. Perhaps it relies on the idea that viewers will be so familiar with James' story that dialogue and even (gasp) exposition might be necessary to flesh things out a bit. I learned more from reading the viewer comments here than I did from watching the film.Poor Jodhi May must have drunk gallons of water during filming, since she seems to spend about 50% of her on screen time with eyes bulging and her mouth hanging open. Her descent into madness is believably gradual, but her Victorian ideas of purity and evil seem to leap from nowhere. Her character desperately needed context in order to be more clear.I saw "The Innocents" with Deborah Kerr a few years ago and it was genuinely creepy. This Masterpiece Theatre production lacked Innocents' clarity of narrative and commitment to interpretation. Instead, it wandered through far too many long shots, pan shots, and crane shots across an English country estate. And the ending was completely anti-climactic, with May's emotional level the same as it had been throughout most of the rest of the film, when instead it should have been leaping off the screen.Three stars for pretty pictures and occasional acting; minus seven stars for poor script, vision, and direction.

Henry James wrote, perhaps the most famous ghost story in the world: The Turn of the Screw.The suggestion in the book is that the governess might be having hallucinations brought on by sexual hysteria, OR she might, indeed be caught between the living children under her care, and the dead lovers who communicate with each other through the children. Benjamin Britten wrote an opera that is absolutely bone-chilling called The Turn of the Screw. Many films have also been made either called The Turn of the Screw or, in a brilliant adaptation, The Innocence.In The Innocence, Sir Michael Redgrave is the owner of Blye and the person who hires Deborah Kerr to be in complete charge of his niece and nephew.In this new Masterpiece Theater adaptation, called The Turn of the Screw, Colin Firth plays The Master of Blye who hires Jodi May as governess.Redgrave is older, detached and uninterested in the workings and daily problems of Blye and simply wants someone to run things for him.Firth is young and VERY sexy. So much so, that he uses his sexuality to convince a naive and hesitant May to take the position.This sexual attraction, on May's part, is underlined with a scene where she enters The Master's bedroom at Blye, and touches his clothes.But the haunting of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel are presented as VERY real, and very threatening.What is merely suggested in the older Kerr version, is played out with more emphasis in this Masterpiece Theater version.The sets are lush. The setting beautiful. The children too perfect. Flora is smug and deceptive. Niles is heart-breaking in his corruption.The question remains. Was the governess mad or was she overwhelmed by the evil of Peter Quint? Were the children possessed or was the governess?An excellent version, although there are scenes in the Kerr version that are truly jolting.