The Turn of the Screw 2009

The film unfolds through a layered narrative that blends memory with present therapy: Ann Michelle Dockery, a patient in a sanatorium, discusses her case with Dr Dan Stevens Fisher, a skeptical and atheistic psychiatrist who prefers caution over certainty. Fisher’s superior, the Corin Redgrave Professor, urges him to focus on soldiers returning from the First World War, but Fisher nonetheless seeks any possible path to help Ann.

In flashbacks, Ann is hired by a wealthy and sophisticated aristocrat Master Mark Umbers to act as governess for his orphaned nephew Miles Josef Lindsay and niece Flora Eva Sayer who live at Bly. He tells her not to be bothered in London and to deal with any problems on the estate. Ann travels to Bly and meets the all-female staff led by Mrs Grose Sue Johnston; the household feels chilly and secretive, and the staff are wary of talking to the new governess. Ann receives a letter that Miles has been expelled from his boarding school, though Mrs Grose assures her that Miles is well-behaved. When he arrives, Miles is charming yet reserved, and Ann chooses not to push him about his past.

Ann learns that her predecessor, Emily Jessel Katie Lightfoot, is buried in Bly’s church and is said to have killed herself. Soon she begins to glimpse the figures of a young man and a young woman around Bly. The staff dismisses Ann’s visions, but Carla Nicola Walker warns that the staff themselves were unsettled after the war. Ann is woken at night by the female figure and follows her to the open window; Flora is found there as well. Carla dies near Miles after a sighting, and the male figure is seen on the roof. Inside, Mrs Grose insists that Ann must be mistaken. Ann suspects the spirits of the former valet Peter Quint Edward MacLiam and Jessel are trying to resume their passionate and violent encounters through Miles and Flora, even as others insist she is imagining things.

Haunted by the visions, Ann contemplates leaving Bly, but when she says goodbye to Miles, he too seems to see the figures. She begs to be taken back, and she becomes increasingly unsettled as the estate’s secrets press in. Later, she confronts the children at the lake; Miles and Flora appear to act out their connection with Quint and Jessel. When Miles pushes Flora’s head underwater, Ann intervenes and finds herself grappling with a figure that alternates between Quint and Miles. Mrs Grose stops her, and Flora withdraws, saying she no longer wishes to see Ann. Ann orders the staff and Flora away and waits with Miles to face Quint. The living Miles pleads with Quint to leave him alone, and at last Miles speaks in his own voice to tell Quint to go. But Miles’s body goes limp in Ann’s arms and she is left with a horrifying certainty of what has occurred.

Found later by the authorities clutching Miles’s corpse, Ann refuses to speak until she meets Dr Fisher. He seems to accept the plausibility of her account, resisting a purely psychosexual explanation of what she witnessed, while acknowledging the limits of his own interpretation. Fisher’s professional doubt lingers as Ann is taken away, and the film closes with a new governess arriving at Bly, leaving the truth of what happened ambiguous.