The Awakening was an old-fashioned chiller. Released in 2011 it was an atmospheric horror flick.
The First World War and Great Influenza Epidemic has caused millions of deaths. By 1921 people in England have started to believe in the supernatural. Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) is a rational sceptic and sets out to disprove the existence of ghosts. Robert Mallory (Dominic West), a history master from a boarding school in Cumbria asks for Florence’s help after a boy dies of fright.
The Awakening has a modest 62% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 6.5 on IMDB. However, horror films often have lower ratings on IMDB, so its score is solid for the genre. What made The Awakening work was its cast and the atmosphere.
I have a soft spot for atmospheric ghost stories like The Sixth Sense, The Orphanage, and A Tale of Two Sisters so The Awakening was right up my alley. The Awakening bore similarities to those mentions because all of them centred around a mystery that needed to be solved and had some sort of twist. Like A Tale of Two Sisters, The Awakening was set in mostly one location and had a small cast of characters.
The Awakening was a film of two halves. The first was showing Florence finding a rational explanation for why the boy died. The second turned into a proper ghost story as Florence experiences the supernatural. Florence had a contradiction in her character: she was looking to disprove the supernatural in the hope she can find evidence of the afterlife. Like many people in the period, she suffered loss and wanted to find a way to communicate with lost loved ones.
The Night House, a film later in Rebecca Hall’s filmography, had a lot in common with The Awakening. Both were stories about women processing their grief and mental health amidst a haunting. In both films Hall displayed her talent, and she gave terrific performances.
The Awakening was made when Hall’s career was on the rise. She had major supporting roles in films like The Prestige, Frost/Nixon, and The Town. The Awakening was her first starring vehicle for Hall, and she excelled as an intelligent woman who was well ahead of her time. She got to show Florence as the confident woman and the woman experienced by the haunting.
Hall did get to work with a great supporting cast. The main members were Dominic West, Imelda Staunton, and Issac Hempstead-Wright. West was particularly impressed because he was playing a kindly character compared to the more villainous roles he’s known for. West’s Mallory was still forthright and could give Florence a telling off when required he was a gentle man. This was particularly surprising because Mallory was a teacher and World War One veteran.
Nick Murphy and his team were able to make a great-looking film. There were details with the equipment Florence used, the costumes worn, and cinematography. The cinematographer, Eduard Grau must have had a good working relationship with Hall because he’s worked on her directional debut, and the composer, Daniel Pemberton, has gone on to work on big studio films like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the Spider-Man Spider-verse series.
The biggest issue of The Awakening were the twists. The filmmakers were aiming for a Sixth Sense-style reveal. The first twist was to be expected, the second stretched plausibility. There was some setup towards the second twist, but it still came off as unbelievable. The filmmakers were trying to add more of an emotional connection between Florence and some of the other characters. However, The Awakening would have worked better without the second twist.
The Awakening was an excellent throwback to when horror films were more about atmosphere and tension and less about blood and gore. The Awakening served as a great showcase of Rebecca Hall’s talent. However, it was a film that suffered from a third act collapse.
