England, 1921. A country still in shock from World War I and an influenza epidemic that killed more people than the war. “A time for ghosts” the opening titles read. A whole industry has sprung up; taking advantage of people’s desperate need to reach those they loved, now dead. Seances, psychic readings, mediums, the works.
Florence Cathcart is not a believer in ghosts, and has written a well-respected book stating her views. One of her activities is exposing the scammers who take advantage of people’s grief. So many potential victims out there.
We see her breaking up one seance, and her contempt for the people staging it. You’re charlatans and more than that, poor charlatans, she tells the people staging the event.
As effective as Florence is, she shows no satisfaction at protecting her clients. One of them is furious; she asks if Florence ever lost a child. Florence, who never seems at a loss with words, has no quick answers for her. She seems drained of emotion.
Soon after, a schoolteacher at a boarding school asks her for help. A boy has died at his school under mysterious circumstances. He knows her reputation as a ghost hunter. You can’t hunt what doesn’t exist, she answers.
“We think it does,” he tells her quietly. He is assertive but she gives him a flat-out no. Yet we see them soon after in a car headed for the school. No explanation given; a mystery that will unfold at a slow pace.
The school is a colorless, bleak place. Strict discipline but empty of warmth. Maud Hill, the matron, provides what little kindness we can find. Maud says she’s read Florence’s book…more than once. She is definitely an admirer. Again, we feel the staff’s desperation. They may or may not believe in ghosts but they are at their wits’ end. The boys are terrified too. Almost too scared to answer any questions but direct enough: “Kill it, miss.”
Florence has come prepared with equipment; the latest instruments to capture supernatural phenomena—if she finds any..
She finds the death of the boy easy to solve. Not the work of ghosts. The students and the staff are much grateful to her. And yet Florence is neither satisfied nor eager to leave. What is keeping her? The school is empty of warmth. Maud Hill, the matron, provides what little kindness we can find.
Florence has come prepared with equipment; the latest instruments to capture supernatural phenomena—if she finds any to capture.
She finds the death of the boy easy to solve. Not the work of ghosts. The students and the staff are much grateful to her. And yet Florence is neither satisfied nor eager to leave. What is keeping her?
The easy explanation—to find what is missing in her life. She has heard brief references to a boy dying years before at the same location—someone’s home then, not a school. Something in those questions is drawing her in. The angry question from the woman on the street—it may be an isolated experience. But it may pose questions as to what Florence is searching for. People in her life she treasures. A mission of some kind that brings her fulfillment.
The school schedule has reached half-term. All the boys get a week off with their families. Except for Tom, whose parents live in India, an impossible trip in just one week. Tom and Florence talk about her dead fiancé…killed in the war. Florence loved him. But she sent him a letter saying she had no feelings for him. He died soon after.
A miniature doll’s house in an empty room brings back other memories to Florence. A man insane with jealousy, ready to kill his wife—he is sure of her unfaithfulness. Florence and Tom find themselves staring at the doll’s house…inside the house that later became the school.
How much is Florence’s imagination, how much is her memory? The matron Maud seems to recall a lot of the tale. “I don’t think there’s a place on Earth where people can understand loneliness better than here,” she said to Florence earlier. You can’t take her words lightly. She was a servant too when the school was home to a doomed family, then a matron after it became a school.
Don’t expect many jump scares in The Awakening. Instead, you will get emotion; you watch a woman searching for answers—a woman who once felt she knew everything she needed to know. She solved one mystery—people can’t understand any reason for her to stay after that. The last 30-40 minutes of this movie shoot by quickly. Stay with it, stay with Florence as the revelations come to her. These discoveries pack a punch, a mean one. Her story—and Maud’s and Tom’s, will rivet you.
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