Ghost Story: The Turn of the Screw
Feb. 12th, 2026 08:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI was excited about Ghost Story: The Turn of the Screw, because it stars Michelle Dockery and Dan Stevens (pre-Downton Abbey!), and the screenplay was written by Sandy Welch, also responsible for the screenplays of such winners as the Romola Garai Emma and the 2006 Jane Eyre.
However, this adaptation leaned very hard on the Edmund Wilson interpretation of The Turn of the Screw, which is that the “ghosts” are in fact products of the repressed governess’s overheated imagination. And whoever had charge of the filming clearly felt that one should never imply when one could show, so we are treated to multiple scenes of evil Peter Quinn having sex with the former governess, sexually assaulting the maids, etc, which I feel is a counterproductive choice in a ghost story.
They also introduced a frame story where the governess is in an asylum, with Dan Stevens as her psychiatrist. I always enjoy seeing Dan Stevens but I must admit that here his entire plotline seems superfluous. Why keep cutting away from the central story? It constantly undermines the atmosphere of claustrophobic horror that the ghost story is trying to build up.
So I was all set to complain about the film, but in fact I’ve been thinking about the story on and off since I saw it. Is the governess truly seeing ghosts? What did happen to the children before our governess arrived? And what truly happened in the end? So I suppose I must crankily admit that the film is effective even if it’s not artful.
Will this finally inspire me to read Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw? Probably not, as I’ve never fully recovered from how much I hated Daisy Miller. But maybe someday.
However, this adaptation leaned very hard on the Edmund Wilson interpretation of The Turn of the Screw, which is that the “ghosts” are in fact products of the repressed governess’s overheated imagination. And whoever had charge of the filming clearly felt that one should never imply when one could show, so we are treated to multiple scenes of evil Peter Quinn having sex with the former governess, sexually assaulting the maids, etc, which I feel is a counterproductive choice in a ghost story.
They also introduced a frame story where the governess is in an asylum, with Dan Stevens as her psychiatrist. I always enjoy seeing Dan Stevens but I must admit that here his entire plotline seems superfluous. Why keep cutting away from the central story? It constantly undermines the atmosphere of claustrophobic horror that the ghost story is trying to build up.
So I was all set to complain about the film, but in fact I’ve been thinking about the story on and off since I saw it. Is the governess truly seeing ghosts? What did happen to the children before our governess arrived? And what truly happened in the end? So I suppose I must crankily admit that the film is effective even if it’s not artful.
Will this finally inspire me to read Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw? Probably not, as I’ve never fully recovered from how much I hated Daisy Miller. But maybe someday.
