Henry James’ classic novella Turn of the Screw gets a mood-driven re-imagining in In a Dark Place, starring Leelee
Sobieski. A sort of cut-rate ghost story with heavy ’70s-style arthouse
inflections, and plenty of lurking window and point-of-view shots, the movie
might most surprise James, though, for the over-under of its tub and bathrobe
scenes, which total a hearty dozen (below).

Sobieski stars as Anna Veigh, an art teacher who is sort of
shipped off from her current position, to a post as a nanny for two young
orphans, 10-year-old Miles (Christian Olson) and Flora (Gabrielle Adam). Her
new workplace is a remote country estate with beautiful if deserted grounds,
and despite having already seen their fair share of hell in the deaths of their
parents and Anna’s predecessor, Miss Jessel, the children seem courteous and charming,
if initially a bit strange. This quietly mannered world quickly fades as Anna makes
a series of disturbing discoveries, catching glimpses of figures lurking on the
grounds which she later learns are those of two ex-employees who are now dead. Though
she at first questions her own sanity, it comes to seem that the figures have
sinister intentions, and so Anna is forced to confront dark secrets buried deep
in her own psyche as she fights, in somewhat vaguely defined fashion, to
cleanse the children’s souls of darkness.

It’s worth mentioning at this point, lest someone think this
is a good companion piece to Alejandro Amenábar’s The Others, that Anna is accompanied throughout all this by the
children’s uncle’s chilly secretary, Ms. Grose (Tara Fitzgerald, a sort of younger, poor woman’s
Lena Olin), who clearly holds some sort of secrets. It’s never really explained
why Anna is hired for a job that Ms. Grose is materially assisting in — and
could seemingly do herself, actually — but this question fades into
insignificance when the latter’s cold behavior morphs into strangely blackmailed
affection.

Helmed by debut director Donato Rotunno, In a Dark Place has the certain advantage of all sorts of strange little
alleyways not typical of such genre pieces, as well as some weird directorial flourishes,
like an oddball violin electronica-infused sequence which juxtaposes Anna’s
wilderness wanderings with Ms. Grose playing dress-up and writhing about in her
clothes. So it’s original, really, in
a way, but not necessarily all good. The movie delves into the subject of abuse,
and how those abused can become abusers, but only in a very elliptical manner —
one that’s interesting without being wholly satisfying. Sobieski is good at
conveying Anna’s vulnerabilities, but not her slide into… well, quasi-madness,
let’s say, which the script rather short-changes. She does display a bit of cleavage and side-boob, and just a flash of bare behind, though — enough, along with Fitzgerald’s aforementioned
writhing, to help earn an R rating for a film that is otherwise a very tame,
proper and almost PG-rated story of mistreatment and alienation.

Presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, In a Dark Place comes with solid English language Dolby digital 5.1
surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio mixes, as well as optional English and
Spanish subtitles. The sole DVD bonus feature is a 12-minute making-of featurette
which includes interviews with Sobieski, Fitzgerald and director Rotunno, who confesses
to ignoring James’ source text and all previous adaptations, and starting from
scratch with Peter Waddington’s screenplay. Sobieski, meanwhile, says (though
none too convincingly) that her initial attraction to the movie was its “sensitive
and chiseled script,” and talks about how the film was a departure for her in a
sense, because she was heretofore always used to being the youngest on the set.
C (Movie) C+ (Disc)