CHRISTMAS LEFTOVERS # 2 - CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES - WHISTLE AND I'LL COME TO YOU (2010)

DIRECTED BY Andy De Emmony

SCREENPLAY BY Neil Cross based on the short story "Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You, My Lad" by M.R. James

STARRING - John Hurt as James Parkin,  Gemma Jones as Anna Parkin,  Lesley Sharp as Hetty,  Sophie Thompson as Carol.

PLOT - James Parkin, a retired academic, has recently committed his wife Anna to a care home as she is suffering from dementia.

Determined to relive happier times, James goes on holiday to the remote coastal hotel where he and Anna spent thier honeymoon many years ago.

One day, whilst out walking on the beach, James finds an abandoned old wedding ring inscribed with the words "who is this who is coming ?"

Not long after James begins to be visited in the dead of night by an unknown and seemingly malevolent visitor.

Who or what is haunting James and what has it to do with his senile and ill wife back home ?...

PERFORMANCES - M.R. James' classic ghost story "Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You, My Lad" was first adapted by the BBC by Jonathan Miller in 1968 (there's a review of it somewhere on here but even after nearly two years of blogging I still don't know how to post a link to the bloody thing - look in the archive for December 2023 and it'll be there, if you're interested...)

In 2010, for that year's Christmas Ghost Story, the beeb decided to screen a remake/re-imagining of that story. Unlike the '68 version, this interpretation is set in modern day times and the differences don't end there...

Veteran actor John Hurt plays the role of Parkin this time round. In the '68 version Michael Hordern played Parkin as an eccentric, up-tight "dotty professor" type of character. Hurt gives a more realistic, grounded and more haunted (in both senses) version of the character.

Parkin is a very lonely figure in this version, he's basically in mourning for his wife (who has been taken away from him, piece by piece, by dementia), he's also mourning thier lost youth and the happy times they used to have together. By going on a nostalgic holiday he's hoping to relive some of those times, but really all this seems to be doing is making the poor old boy even more morose. He's basically wallowing in his own sense of loss, which is never healthy.

Hurt plays this sweetly sad character brilliantly, you'll definitely find yourself feeling sorry for this poor old guy. Anyway, Parkin ambles along in this way for a little while until eventually he finds the "cursed" ring and the haunting starts in earnest. First it takes the form of a spectral figure that seems to follow him on the beach. No matter how fast Parkin runs (which seeing as he's in his late seventies, probably isn't that fast) the figure always manages to only be a few yards behind him...

As events begin to escalate Parkin becomes increasingly more terrified. The scenes where Parkin is alone in his bedroom in the dead of night whilst someone (or something) rattles and bangs on his door are brilliantly chilling (you'll never see a rattling doorknob in quite the same way again). Hurt completely sells these scenes (he looks genuinely frightened out of his mind), Hurt was one of the best actors of his generation and performances of this calibre only go to show why he was held in such high regard.

There's also time for a dash of black humour in Hurt's performance. The scenes where he scowls at a plaster cast statue bust that's been left in his hotel room are great. The thing seems to really give him the willies (to be fair it does always seem to looking at him). Parkin ends up shutting the pesky plaster cast in a cupboard so he doesn't have to look at it anymore. It almost becomes like a third character in the film due to the hateful "relationship" Parkin forms with it.

Hurt is backed up by Gemma Jones who plays his onscreen wife Anna. As you already know Anna is suffering from late stage dementia and has been consigned to a care home. Jones gives a performance that manages to be both heart rendingly sad and deeply creepy at the same time. She gets very little dialogue, most of her performance is given by body language alone. Anna veers from sitting staring vacantly into space to having moments where she becomes childlike. I'm guessing it's a fairly accurate portrayal of someone who's suffering from extreme dementia. It's very affecting to say the least.

However, there's more to Anna than meets the eye. It turns out (SPOILER ALERT) - that Anna is actually the "ghost" that's haunting Parkin. "But surely she's still alive ?" I hear you cry. Well that's where the central conceit of this version of the story comes into play - Anna's body is still alive and functioning but due to the erosion of her personality by her dementia, the person she was is to all intents and purposes dead. Parkin even spells this out at one point when he says the concept of a ghost - a consciousness that has survived the death of it's physical body is nowhere near as horrifying as seeing a body survive long after it's consciousness has left it. Parkin doesn't know exactly how near to the mark he's hit it here.

When we finally see Anna's ghost properly... she's absolutely TERRIFYING !!! I mean...yeah...technically she just looks like a sweet little old lady but it's the way she's shot and photographed in these scenes - she looks ethereal and creepy as hell just sat there on the end of Parkin's bed. She's exactly what you could imagine a ghostly visitation from a dead person being like. It's also down to Gemma Jones' performance as well - that unnerving grin she gives. If you think that's bad enough what comes next is even more affecting as she literally screams into her husband's face -"I'M STILL HERE !!!!". The implication is clear... she's angry at her husband for abandoning her in a care home. Regardless of a lifetime of love, she feels disappointed and betrayed by him. She's become an angry restless spirit...and she's looking for revenge...

SFX - None whatsoever. This version of the story doesn't really need them - it's all achieved by excellent cinematography and performances. Sometimes less is more.

VIOLENCE - Again, none whatsoever... unless you count poor old Parkin being literally so frightened by his wife's angry spirit that he suffers a massive (and fatal) coronary in the film's closing scenes.

RATING - At the time of this film's original broadcast I can remember lots of M.R. James fans being up in arms about this version, and whilst it strays considerably far from it's source material this still manages to be an excellent (and very unnerving) ghost story.

It's the quality of the acting coupled with the atmospheric way it's shot that really sells this version.

Definitely give this one a go. 5 living ghosts out of 5 - an underappreciated classic.

ART -