By Geno McGahee
This film was an impulse buy. I saw all of the quotes from different reviewers that they plastered on the DVD case and it was being called “terrifying” by everyone on the case. It had to be right…right? This film should have had me running out of the house or at least shutting the TV off to avoid the pure horror of it. Well, it wasn’t scary and it was very slow moving. I won’t say it was horrible, but it falls into the forgettable category.
We begin with Florence (Rebecca Hall), and the year is 1921 and we are in England. So, I was ready for the look and accents that would come with this film, and I was even prepared for the artsy-fartsy stuff that was bound to be part of this package deal, but I was pretty sure that I would be in for something special.
Florence begins by exposing a ghost hoax. She shows up some charlatans and then is presented with an interesting opportunity. A boarding school claims that they have evidence of a true spirit that haunts it and show her various pictures of a near-transparent young boy. Sometimes he’s making that gaping mouth face that you see a lot in Asian horror/ghost films. It’s not scary…not at all…not even a little.
At the hall, she meets up with Maude (Imelda Staunton) and she is a huge fan of the work of Florence. Right on Maude! She makes her stay at this boy’s home welcoming, but she makes the fact that she has something to hide pretty obvious. I never trusted this Maude. Right on Maude!
Florence begins to see things…namely some asshole with a shotgun. When she thinks that she successfully took a picture of the man, she only gets the ghostly boy in her photos. What a pain in the ass ghosts can be, and it really rattles the beliefs of the hoax exposer. She also has this mystery too…and so does everyone. Every fucking person in this movie is mysterious. We don’t have one normal boring person. Wouldn’t life be wonderful if everyone had this aura of mystery surrounding them?
The story behind the ghostly (and not so ghostly at times) little boy comes out and…it sort of sucks. They tried to wrap this mess up into one solid story, but they had too much going on, and the payoff isn’t worth the slow ride to get there. This movie looks beautiful and Hall does a great job in the lead role, but the film lacks in so many areas and moves at a snail’s pace, mixing in bad CGI with various storylines…many of which could have been cut and we would’ve been fine.
THE AWAKENING is shot really well, the acting it very good, and it has its moments, but it really turned into a mixed up mess with an unsatisfying ending. If you like artsy-fartsy, ghost movies that couldn’t scare an 8 year old, then this film is for you. It was difficult to get through…even with Maude. Right on fucking Maude!
Rating: 4/10