The Awakening
All actors and roles (10)
All team (83)
Short description
The Awakening is set in England in the early 1920s, in the aftermath of the First World War, when spiritualism and seances attracted many people grieving the dead. Florence Cathcart, a rational and skeptical woman, has made a name for herself exposing fraudulent mediums. She is asked to travel to a boarding school in the north of England, where boys and staff have reported seeing a ghostly child. Florence expects to find an ordinary hoax, but an encounter with something she cannot explain undermines her confidence in her own rational outlook.
Nick Murphy directed the film and wrote the screenplay with Stephen Volk. It was Murphy's first feature as director, followed by Blood in 2012 and FX's A Christmas Carol in 2019. Rebecca Hall plays Florence, with Dominic West as Robert Mallory, Imelda Staunton as Maud Hill, Isaac Hempstead-Wright as Tom, Lucy Cohu as Constance Strickland and Cal MacAninch as Freddie Strickland. Around thirty cast members and eighty-three crew are credited.
Made for about five million dollars, the film took roughly seven million dollars at the worldwide box office. On IMDb it holds 6.5 out of 10 from around 72,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.4 out of 10 from about 1,550 votes. A critics' rating of 5.7 out of 10 from seventy-four reviews places it slightly below the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film is set in 1921.
- Florence is called "Mausi", which translates from German as "mouse". This is a term of endearment, similar to the English word "honey" (literally – honey, figuratively – darling, dear, beloved).
- The interior shots of the boarding school were filmed at Marchmont House (a historic building, a residential home), while the exterior of the school was depicted by Manderston House. Both buildings are located in Scotland.
- When Florence Catcart examines the classroom where ghosts have been repeatedly seen, a quote from the poem "To the Fallen" (1914) from the "Ode of Remembrance" by English poet and playwright Laurence Binyon (1869-1943) briefly appears on the blackboard behind her – "They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old." The poem became a poetic symbol of mourning for the British who died in World War I. This is a tribute to the boys shown in old photographs earlier in the film, who are presumably killed in the war.
- Isaac Hempstead-Wright, who played Tom Hill, and Joseph Mawle, who played the gardener, both appeared in the series "Game of Thrones" (2011). Mawle played Benjen Stark, Ned Stark's brother, while Hempstead-Wright played Bran Stark, Ned's son and Benjen's nephew.
- The building used as the boarding school in the film also depicted Mr. Darcy's estate in the dramatic miniseries "Pride and Prejudice" (1995) starring Colin Firth.
- The painting, said to be very popular with boys, is "Judith Slaying Holofernes" (1612-1613) by the Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-c.1653).
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