Nick (son) and I got out to see a movie late this afternoon, something we hadn't gotten to do in a while. My wife was getting some rest and Trav (other son) was over a friend's house, so it was Cinema Nick and I again. There had been such a dearth of films we were interested in seeing through most of December and January, but two weeks ago we had gone out to try to see De Niro's latest vehicle, Hide and Seek, but the theatre was mobbed and we let it slide. Last weekend was the first post-surgical one, so we didn't want to stray from home for that long. Today was more relaxed, though, and more successful.
The film concerns itself with a New York City father and daughter who, following the suicide of wife/mother, move to a new home in the country. The daughter makes an imaginary friend at the new locale, "Charlie", and then increasingly bad and threatening things happen. That much (well, perhaps aside from the suicide) is what anyone who's seen a trailer for the film knows.
From here on down there will likely be spoilers. I don't believe I'll flatly lay everything out, but I can't say much about it without spoiling some aspects of the film. If you're looking forward to seeing this one then read no farther.
This is one of those films where there's a "twist" involved, which is something that's protected by the trailers and commercials, all of which lead the viewer to expect a supernatural force. It's a perfectly valid approach and I think they served themselves well to do it this way.
As someone who's taken the time to get out and pay an exhorbitant sum to see a movie, I don't sit there trying to figure out what's coming next. I let it come at the pace the director decides, and so long as he doesn't derail the story me with inconsistencies, idiocies or obvious dawdling, I maintain the role of audience member.
While the more cynical viewer will see the film as riddled with cliche elements in the new locale, which are stacked like cordwood in attempts to get us to look around for likely suspects or others who might have been touched by "Charlie." Some of them are more effective than others, though for me, by the time they got that far, it was obvious who was really behind the strange and increasingly threatening goings-on. I doubt that anyone will reach the three quarters mark in the film without figuring it out without even trying, but the film doesn't fall apart as a result. We're invested enough in the characters by that point to want to see how it all turns out. Fairly well acted, I don't regret having gone out to see it.
If you happen to see it, I'd be interested in hearing what you thought. Also, I'd like to know which ending you saw. Some comments I've read show that there are at least two versions of the ending out there. Some of the people who saw it early on reported one ending, which may have been replaced with the more overtly upbeat ending, though still with a last stroke of foreboding, which is the one we saw.
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