The Other

The year is 1945, on the island of Jersey, shortly after the war. Grace (Nicole Kidman) is waiting for her husband, who has not returned from the front, and is raising two children on her own who suffer from a rare condition: sunlight can kill them. So, in their large, fog-shrouded house, her rules apply. The curtains are always drawn, and no door may be opened until the previous one has been closed. When three new servants arrive on the doorstep and her daughter begins to talk about people no one but her can see, the world Grace has built begins to crumble.

The entire film rests on this role. Grace is stern, devout, and composed to the extreme, yet at the same time increasingly vulnerable to something she cannot name.

Kidman portrays her with a coolness and tension beneath which a growing sense of panic is palpable from the very first scene. The year 2001 was a breakthrough for her: The Others hit theaters the same year as Moulin Rouge!, and her role as Grace earned her nominations for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award. Shortly thereafter, she won an Oscar for The Hours.

Amenábar wrote the screenplay himself, directed the film, and composed the music for it. He drew on the tradition of Henry James’s *The Turn of the Screw* and Jack Clayton’s *The Innocents* to show that the most effective horror is the kind that doesn’t raise its voice. Here, the terror stems from silence, the flame of a candle, and what lies behind each door, while the darkness in Javier Aguirresarobe’s cinematography is a full-fledged protagonist. The film became a global hit, won eight Goya Awards—including Best Picture and Best Director—and is still considered one of the most important horror films of the 21st century.

To mark the 25th anniversary of its release, The Others is returning to theaters in a new 4K restoration approved by the director.