Movie Review: The Woman in Black Starring Daniel Radcliffe

By Mekado Murphy

Anatomy of a Scene: The Woman in Black: James Watkins, the director of "The Woman in Black," narrates a scene from the film.

A creaking, shrieking haunted-house amusement and a solid addition to the recently resurrected Hammer Films the company where Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing once reigned The Woman in Black makes the most of its old-fashioned virtues. Duded out in a period frock coat and pocket-watch chain for his first post-Potter film role, Daniel Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, a British lawyer who, years after his wife, Stella (Sophie Stuckey), died in childbirth, has the haunted eyes of the eternal mourner. Its no wonder too, given that Stella, a beauty in luminous white, periodically hovers around him, either because shes a ghost or a figment of his enduring longing and grief.

The story, based on a 1983 novel by Susan Hill and adapted by Jane Goldman (who had a hand in writing Kick-Ass and The Debt), weaves together! a compe ndium of familiar themes. Arthurs employer, whos all but run out of patience with his doleful solicitor, gives him one last chance to prove his worth: hes to travel to the remote village of Crythin Gifford to sort out the large estate of woman whos recently died. So Arthur parks his son with the nanny, boards a train and heads straight into the creeping mists and mysteries of an isolated hamlet where the children scatter when he approaches. and the adults have darts in their eyes if not pitchforks in hand.

Something wicked does come, of course, slowly and at times with unsettling effectiveness. It seems theres a ghost troubling the area, haunting the estate and sowing great misery, though appearances, like apparitions, can be deceiving. Bewilderingly, most of the villagers treat Arthur with unexplained hostility, glowering and slamming doors. Undaunted, he secures a sympathetic ally in a friendly local, Mr. Daily (Ciaran Hinds) who drives a Silver Ghost Rolls-Royce, indicating that the story takes place between 1907 and the start of World War I and a strange confederate in Mr. Dailys dotty wife (Janet McTeer, enjoying herself). With their aid Arthur begins poking about the estate that, set high on an isolated marsh, comes with both gravestones and spooks.

Schooled in the art of the quiet boo, Mr. Watkins fills the film with squeaking doors and floorboards, pools of black, long silences and an assortment of moldering toys. Less gore is more here, and what a relief. The Woman in Black isnt especially scary, but it keeps you on edge, and without the usual vivisectionist imagery. Mr. Watkins doesnt paint the screen red; he daubs it on, a restraint that serves his slow-building story and creates a nice chromatic contrast with a palette thats heavy on white, black, dun brown and gray. Here, when a young girl chokes up a spittoon of blood, the red splattering across her cr! eamy pal e skin, the image keeps on giving.

Mr. Radcliffe makes a sturdy, sympathetic center for the tale, even if the ghost of Potter past hovers in his every gesture. Despite Mr. Radcliffes best efforts (including the choice to go period), the lingering Potter effect is only natural given that Hogwarts was the actors training ground. It will take time before many of us will be able to see the actor instead of his famous character, and time for him to shake that role off too, though it helps that Mr. Radcliffe is no longer encumbered by Harrys mop and especially his glasses. A movie actors eyes can be his most expressive tool, one that Mr. Radcliffe, who has a pretty blue pair framed by thick brows the eyes suggest watery lightness while the brows convey a heavy weight wasnt able to make full use of as Harry.

Those eyes get a workout in The Woman in Black, but Mr. Watkinss smartest choice is to make use of Mr. Radcliffes long tenure as an action star. There isnt much by way of dashing heroics here, but Arthur is almost continually on the move, including during a successful long and nearly wordless interlude in which he wanders through the vacated estate, its snaking hallways, locked and suddenly unlocked rooms alive with scraping, rasping and murmuring. At times Arthur looks so small engulfed in all that darkness, and so helpless, much like one of the children who haunt the story without investing it with much feeling. With Mr. Watkinss creeping camerawork its Arthur who keeps the story steadily moving forward inch by inch, shiver by shiver.

The Woman in Black is rated PG-13. (Parental guidance suggested.) Some blood but little actual violence.

The Woman in Black

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by James Watkins; written by Jane Goldman, based on the novel by Susan Hill; director of photography, Tim Maurice-Jones; edited by Jon Harris; music by Marco Beltrami; production design by Kave Quinn; costumes by Keith Madden; produced by Richard Jackson, Simon Oakes and Brian Oliver; released by CBS Films. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes.

WITH: Daniel Radcliffe (Arthur Kipps), Ciaran Hinds (Samuel Daily), Janet McTeer (Mrs. Daily), Shaun Dooley (Fisher) and Liz White (Jennet Humfrye).