The Awakening (2011)

Despite the fact that I had a free week, I didn't manage to take much advantage of this to see more movies. Moreover, given the mix between the current late hour and the fact that I'm continuously yawning I prefer to stop at something that won't eat much time: "The Awakening" (no pun intended).

 The story: Florence Cathcart is a miss from somewhere in England at the beginning of the 20th century, specialized in .. ghost hunting, or more exactly in unraveling the spirits contact session hoaxes perpetrated very often after the 1st World War. She's apparently even a success author of a book handling the same theme. Well .. one day Miss Cathcart gets summoned to help in the investigation of a suspect death case, the victim being a kid from a boys school. The catch here is the fact that the school is apparently haunted by another's boy spirit, a boy who is rumored that got killed many many years behind in very unclear circumstances.

 The first and the most important thing: the description above is way (waaaaaaay) more gruesome than what you get to see in the movie. It sounds more like a horror .. I would say that the movie is more drama than that. Unfortunately is a drama with a bad script. If you yearn for gratuitous philosophical lines on an average of at least one/10 minutes (or .. I don't know .. during the last year you've watched only mindless action stuff and you have the most painful need for something opposite) than probably you won't mind the movie style. For me the dialogues were tormenting ... Not dumb .. thank Godness, besides "Avatar", "Transformers" or others, the cliches are not that present. Tormenting = pumped up at maximum with lines that don't fit + they're long, boring and want to sound deep (so much that you can feel from a mile away the fakeness of the "deepness" ). Besides this (and because of this) the movie moves quite slowly, up to an ending which I don't know ... it's probably something between "The Others", "The Haunting", one or more titles by Guillermo del Toro that I'm missing a this hour (and I'm too lazy to search :) )a and probably more others. So, in my opinion - originality: pretty bad. 

The main reason for which I ended up watching this movie is that Rebecca Hall is somewhere in top 3 favorite actresses for me .. well, if I would make a top like this. Unfortunately this is half (or even more) from what's to appreciate in "The Awakening". And "to appreciate" here is obviously subjective (although leaving apart the personal preferences, I really believe that the role is good and it saves the movie from a complete disasters). The other positive aspect is the cinematography about which I won't spend more time writing, but you can get some samples in the trailer. Shortly put what you see is quite pleasant to the eye, and it manages to hide quite well the production design which is not the best I've seen. Unfortunately the story and the script are still there, and these two bring the movie down pretty badly.

 Rating: 2 out of 5