The
Ayres family could be the Ushers of the British interwar period. Their once
great manor, Hundreds Hall, has fallen and it can’t get up. Yet, the dour new
doctor remains fascinated by the house and the family, because of his
experiences as an impressionable youth. The corrosive past is never past enough
in Lenny Abrahamson’s The Little Stranger,
adapted fairly faithfully from Sarah Waters’ novel, which opens today in New
York.
Dr.
Faraday’s interest Hundreds Hall started with his mother’s stories of her years
spent in-service there. However, he became fully obsessed when he visited the
estate in its heyday, for a children’s fair the Ayres family hosted. He was
probably even more struck by the wild young Ayres daughter Susan, whose
untimely death shortly thereafter was the initial spark of the family’s rapid
decline.
Years
later, Faraday (nobody calls him by his Christian name) returns to the village
to join the local GP’s practice. One of his first house calls is the now
dilapidated Hundreds Hall, where Roderick (not Usher) Ayres is technically head
of household, but most of the practical matters fall to his sister, Caroline. When
the villagers (including Faraday’s partner) talk about her, they say
condescending things like: “she’s not pretty, but she has a good head on her
shoulders.” In contrast, neither Roderick’s head nor his body healed properly after
his return from WWI. He is also somewhat haunted by the death of sister Susan,
as are the rest of Ayreses, which at this point only amounts to Caroline, and
their imperious mother, Mrs. Ayres (again, no Christian name giveth).
So,
is the ghost of Susan Ayres haunting Hundreds Hall? It very likely seems so,
unless she is just a loud unnerving metaphor for her family’s profound
dysfunction. Either way, Faraday still wants in, so he pursues Caroline like he
never could before the Great War.
Obviously,
the film and its source novel have a lot to say about class, as well as gender
roles and maybe even the treatment of veterans, circa Downton Abbey. However, it still functions as an intriguingly
suggestive ghost movie—not in the scare-the-pants-off-you tradition of The Conjuring, but in a
what-the-heck-did-I-just-see-out-of-the-corner-of-my-eye kind of way.
There
is also an eerie resemblance between Domhnall Gleason and Oliver Zetterström,
who plays the youthful but still uptight Faraday, seen in fateful flashbacks. As
a character, Faraday is a cold fish, who has let his covetousness warp his
entire life, but he is only too credible. Ruth Wilson plays Caroline Ayres with
an appropriately British stiff upper lip, but she still conveys a sense of a
myriad of neuroses barely contained beneath her public façade. Of course, the
great Charlotte Rampling is terrific as the regal yet haunted (in maybe more
ways than one) Ayres matriarch.
The
stately Hundreds Hall is also a terrific trump card for the film. It is
endlessly atmospheric, whether seen in its heyday or its shabby nadir. This is
a locale that cries out to be haunted, if it isn’t already. Even though it is
not intended as a straight horror film, there is still some spooky stuff going
on, particularly the business involving the servants summoning bells. It is
subtle, but effective. Highly recommended as a genre film for viewers of PBS’s Masterpiece and equivalent British
period dramas, The Little Stranger opens
today (8/31) at several New York theaters, including the Regal E-Walk.
