'The Turning' Review: Another cliched, predictable screen adaptation of a novella saved by its open ending
Spoilers for 'The Turning'
Henry James' iconic cult classic horror novella 'The Turn of the Screw' has been adapted for the screen and has seen more misses than hits. And its latest rendition from director Floria Sigismondi is riddled with the same cliches of the genre, haphazardly trying to encompass the grit and uncertainty of the plot that we are so used to. But here's the catch - the film's open ending does a brilliant job at capturing the true nature of evil in the story the same way that James's novella did. In that, 'The Turning' might not be as potent at giving goosebumps as the story's 1961 adaptation 'The Innocents,' but it comes pretty close.
The plot revolves around a nanny, Kate (Mackenzie Davis) who travels for a live-in governess job to care for a little girl Flora (Brooklynn Prince) and her teenage rebel brother Miles (Finn Wolfhard) with an eerie housekeeper hovering around the house. The nanny soon begins seeing things and is convinced that the house is haunted, but the ending leaves the whole idea up for debate as we see the nanny fall prey to the same instability that plagues her insane mother. The nanny's horrors include terrifying jump scares and the miserable spirit of her preceding governess who left the house under mysterious circumstances.
Accompanying the ghost of the troubled ex-nanny is a menacing, insidious spirit of the late stableman of the estate who also ended up dying shortly after the governess. Yet amidst all the creaking doors and sinister deep waters of a nearby lake, there springs a story of abandonment and assault as Kate discovers what really happened to the governess and why the stableman's ghost keeps haunting her. However, it is the way the ending plays out that might leave viewers unsettled the most. It's a classic case of a woman claiming there are ghosts and nobody in the house buying it and the harder she tries to prove her claims, the worse it gets for her stay.
The screenplay is written by Chad Hayes and Carey W Hayes, the duo that worked their horrifying imagination for the Conjuring universe, 'The Turning' gets a little predictable in its elements of horror and the whole white-people-in-horror nonsense. The worse things get for Kate in the Blye Manor, the more devoted she becomes to protect the kids in the house. And this is after Miles tells her off for trying so hard even though she's neither their parent nor a part of their family. But Kate is a benchmark for goodwill so of course, she sticks around despite getting beyond obvious reasons to leave, repeatedly.
Davis, who has parlayed her expertise in fiction like 'Black Mirror: San Junipero' and 'Terminator: Dark Fate', brings all her crazy to the screen to deliver a compelling performance of a woman debating if all her final threads of sanity are actually snapping. However, the role of frantic blonde with eyes red and swollen from sleepless nights in a haunted manor in itself is a cliche and Davis relies on those signature tidbits mostly. Wolfhard, whose penchant for the genre has been established by his performances in the two latest 'It' films and three seasons of 'Stranger Things' brings out his most menacing looks as the murderous Miles, while Prince's rendition of the possibly possessed but still adorable Flora promises a bright future in the genre at least.
There's no spoiling the ending as readers already know the duality in its openness, which leaves plenty up for interpretation. But the sequence of Kate driving away from Blye Manor with the kids followed by the scene in the kitchen where she's surrounded by a pool of her mother's confusing drawings is done both tastefully and craftily enough to make viewers rewind a couple of times, to grasp it fully. The magic of the film is how it leaves the viewer confused; one might find themselves wondering if they missed a scene in between or if its an editing issue in the film.
Even in its final moments after Kate confronts the kids about the hauntings and they mock her for being crazy, her pupils dilate and the camera zooms in to a whole other dimension where Kate is in the same place as her unstable mother, frantically scribbling on parchment with charcoal. When Kate turns her around, she looks at her mother's face and screams, and that, my friends, is the eponymous turning. Maybe Kate actually managed to flee the manor with the kids, but that scream at the end could very well be from her seeing her own self in her mother, realizing she has turned just as crazy as the older woman amidst hauntings that never took place at all.
'The Turning' released on January 23, 2020, and will be available for viewing on VoD from Wednesday, April 7, 2020.