THE OTHERS (2001) **1/2 Alejandro Amenábar was going for atmospheric and suspenseful: he did a pretty good job of the former throughout, and generated plenty of the latter during the brief climactic period. Alejandro's strategy is to allow tension to build, and then explode it all in a final blaze of glory and confusion. Unfortunately there's so little giving rise to suspense, or even interest, throughout much of the early going that the grand finale goes off without realizing its potential. Nicole Kidman does a credible job for the most part-she achieves fleeting and uncanny brilliance with eyes opened too wide, or just the right look (you really can't teach this stuff to this level), but lets it all go in scenes including one where she's supposed to be scared but instead just looks like someone trying to learn to sweat. In one of their dialogues you wish that she would rise to the level of Alakina Mann, but at other times she forces interest upon a film that doesn't otherwise appear to be going anywhere. The film turns largely on the unknown, and at this point in the history of cinema we've seen too much not to be able to guess much of it.
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