The Turning
The Turning
Starring Mackenzie Davis, Finn Wolfhard, Brooklyn Prince, Barbara Marten
Directed by Floria Sigismondi
After a previous governess abandons her job in the middle of the night, schoolteacher Kate Mandell (Mackenzie Davis) takes the job due to the fact that she'll be teaching a little girl who's lost her parents - something Kate can relate to since her father left and her mother was sent to a mental institution. Upon arriving at the stately manor, she meets the elderly caretaker Mrs. Grose (Barbara Marten), and then the child she'll be teaching - young, seemingly vibrant Flora (Brooklyn Prince). She's all smiles and cheerful, willingly showing Kate around the expansive grounds, and seems like a dream job for Kate - until she meets Flora's brother Miles (Finn Wolfhard), who just got expelled from his school for fighting.
From the first moment they meet, Kate and Miles butt heads and get into arguments, with Miles showing a strange thirst for malice and mean-spiritedness that alarms Kate. Meanwhile, she begins hearing voices in the mansion and seeing apparitions that seem to be warning her of something, but she refuses to leave Flora alone in the house - but it all could just be in Kate's head.
Henry James' 1989 novella "The Turn of the Screw" has been adapted into several feature films and television shows, with its most anticipated iteration coming later this year with Mike Flanagan's series "The Haunting of Bly Manor" - the follow-up to his acclaimed series "The Haunting of Hill House." Music video director Floria Sigismondi's version, however, is not anticipated: in fact it'll easily go down as the worst adaptation to ever grace the eyes of the unfortunate viewers who had to sit through it, which wasn't a lot due to its abysmal performance and even worse CinemaScore: the dreaded "F" score based off viewer reactions, only the 21st film to achieve that feat.
It's no surprise why the film is so hated - the ending is absolutely terrible. A film with a slow burn is amazing if the payoff is worth the wait, but "The Turning" feels like the train the film was heading on suddenly got derailed, put on another track, and sent in a totally opposite direction off the cliff of a huge mountain. I can always appreciate a film for having a twist ending that makes sense in the grand scheme of things, but this felt more like the series finale of "The Sopranos" - I was in literal shock when the credits started rolling not because I was blown away, but I thought there was more to come because nothing got resolved in the slightest. One guy in the audience actually yelled out, "WHAT THE F&%(? WHAT IS THIS S^#*?" I agree sir, I agree.
The performances were well done, for the most part. Mackenzie Davis does great as Kate, a girl once filled with wide-eyed optimism that slowly deteriorates to a shell of a person by the end, wondering if what she's seeing is real or if she's really just loosing her mind. Her decisions aren't obviously the best (the first sign of paranormal activity I would've high-tailed it out of there no matter if I promised a little girl I'd never leave "cross my heart hope to die"), but she's a likeable heroine who does seem capable and not be going insane. Likewise Brooklyn Prince shines as young Flora, adding to her already impressive resume including her scene-stealing breakout role in 2018's "The Florida Project." Barbara Marten looks downright eerie as the elderly Mrs. Grose, but the weak link is Finn Wolf(try)hard as the bad boy Miles, who carries himself with an arrogant attitude that makes it obvious why any other governess would want to flee within five minutes of talking to him. Wolfhard is in pretty much everything now, and he's becoming old fast - good thing this is the last season of "Stranger Things," otherwise he's probably ruin that too.
The film had everything going for it until the final act, which is a shame because it could've been great if there had been an actual conclusion. The Gothic feel is evident from start to finish, as the mansion itself is the best character in the film: its huge, with lots of creepy rooms and dolls, and the outer grounds are equally eerie with constant fog and darkness overshadowing the complex, leaving no room for any natural light. Cinematographer David Ungaro did amazing work in making every inch of the facility seem like a death trap, and the classic dark composition by composer Nathan Barr deftly added a continual sense of dread, but even those couldn't save the film from becoming repetitive and downright boring at times - but again I was still invested to see how it would all pan out in the end. I'm still waiting for that end.
Offering one of the worst endings I've ever seen in film, "The Turning" had a lot of promise before its disastrous final act, rendering in everything happening before it moot and making it an almost unwatchable film.
The Score: D-
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