Review of The Innocents

Heavy-handed adaptation of Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" (a better title!) about a hopeful, energetic woman who takes job as governess to two children living in an idyllic English estate on the Moors. Miss Giddens is sunny but nervous as a cat, hearing voices on her first day and then jumping at shadows. Deborah Kerr is well cast in the role, but the part as written doesn't allow for much shading, and Kerr occasionally slips into a monotonous sort of sing-song. The film poses all sorts of different questions, but doesn't satisfy us (or itself) with the answers. It certainly looks good, but the finale doesn't provide the viewer with any release. And, to my taste, the direction at the end is questionable--taking Miss Giddens' sensitivity towards the boy to an off-putting level (she kisses him like a lover). Director Jack Clayton doesn't have the nasty spirit to give us a good spook show--he's too literal in his visual style and too high-brow in his approach--but the film isn't stagy as one might expect and it isn't predictable. I just didn't find it particularly scary. **1/2 from ****