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THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR

AN AU PAIR IS WARNED NOT TO LEAVE HER BEDROOM AT NIGHT



★★★★☆ (Worth the Watch)

Director: Mike Flanagan

2020


The Haunting of Bly Manor is another ghostly mansion story by Mike Flanagan, but what sets it apart from The Haunting of Hill House and the hundreds of other film projects out there influenced by Henry James or Shirley Jackson is that it has so many easily likable characters who crawl into your heart and die. The minute au pair Dani meets her new charges at the sprawling English estate they call home, we’re as besotted as she is. The elvish Flora (Amelie Bea) and her older brother Miles (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) are newly orphaned, but they have resilience and stiff upper lips that endear them to Dani and us. These plucky kids still know how to have fun, but they are also careful to warn their new nanny that she best not step out of her bedroom in the middle of the night.


The cast of characters we expect to bully Dani (Victoria Pedretti) upon her arrival to Bly Manor could not be more kind. We have Bly’s snarky gardener Jamie (Amelia Eve), the unsure cook Owen (Rahul Kohli), and steadfast housekeeper Hannah Grose (T’Nia Miller), who is showing signs of memory loss. Then there’s Dani, another character we’re happy to root for. The year is 1987, so women were expected to marry and have kids, which means everyone around Dani wonder why she hasn’t done so by her late 20s. She’s pretty, smart, and Mary Sue on a Tesla battery, so what’s her deal? It turns out that she’s suffering from a trauma we know nothing about, something so viciously awful that she’s haunted by a shadowy figure with owl eyes that shows up in mirrors, and then in her bedroom; the sadness or guilt or terror she’s feeling is coming close to Bly, a place she thought she was safe. We are not only spooked by the someone or something walking the halls at night, but by this black entity that has been following her from her old hostel, possibly to do her harm. Similar subplots are the norm in this series. In The Haunting of Bly Manor, mysteries stumble over one another, competing for our attention, but Flanagan injects enough fear into what we don’t see to keep us scared and happy for multiple episodes.



The series has that wonderful feel of falling asleep as the grownups are awake somewhere in the house. Owen, Jamie, Hannah, and Dani behave as if there’s nothing to fear, and we’re confident the kids are safe. But are they? After all, the last nanny died under mysterious circumstances, and strange noises can be heard after dark. Dani’s fierce loyalty to her charges—despite Miles’ behavior that sets off our alarms—gives her and us a reason to stick with Bly Manor. Even when the main ghostly mystery turns out to be convoluted enough to need an entire episode of explanatory narration, it’s satisfying. Mike Flanagan is good at making sure he fills in the plot holes.


Then there is the main headache of the series: tainted love.


SPOILERS Love is in the air throughout the episodes of The Haunting of Bly Manor, and while some relationships are harmful (Henry and you-know-who) and some are precious (the entire staff of coupling), none of are as confusingly cringe-worthy as thieving former butler Peter and Rebecca, the now dead au pair Dani replaced. Peter is good-looking, plays catch with one of the kids, and lures Rebecca in with talk about helping her become a barrister, but that’s all the guy has going for him. A man with a taste for the finer things in life that are out of his reach, like expensive wine and suits, he behaves as if he has a giant chip on his shoulder and has a real knack for complaining about anything. He’s also excellent at stewing in a corner like a serial killer as he watches people have a good time. Early in the “relationship”, Peter grabs at Rebecca, makes demands of her, and yells at her for talking to another man. And this is before he steals $200,000 from his employer. Yeah, he’s a real catch.


Though there’s ketchup (“catsup” in England?) in the refrigerator at the manor that’s been around longer than Rebecca has known her new beau, she won’t be rid of him even when given multiple safe opportunities, sometimes by Peter himself. The Haunting of Bly Manor turns the immature relationship of Rebecca and Peter into some pathetic romance worth dying for, but I see it as a teachable moment. Ladies, even though Rebecca has some good qualities, she’s a toxic character and a horrible role model for young women. All that barrister girl power talk goes all the window when she’s dated a man for a week, so don’t be like Rebecca. The show slowly tries to sell us on this doe-eyed couple who have had setbacks in life, but Rebecca and Peter are less Romeo and Juliet and more Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. We humans are complicated creatures and all of us have faults and make mistakes, but there just comes a point where you can only blame a man-eating pet lion so much before you have to look at who’s keeping him fed.



I want to point out that the show glosses over the fact that Miles/Peter shoved a main character down a well to their death. The episodes go on as if the writers regretted inserting this act into the plot. The send-off for the villain is strangely forgiving. Peter fizzles into heaven as he shouts to Miles something along the lines of, “Sorry about trying to annihilate you, mate!”


SPOILERS END


The real swoon-worthy romance is between our heroine Dani and someone else. The writers did a wonderful job giving this relationship the space and patience it needed to bloom, turning it into a convincing love story. Although the end episodes are chock full of filler dialogue between Rebecca and Peter, stick around for a real show of love between [     ] and Dani—a determined young woman we'd fight to save. And it’s this love for certain characters that makes The Haunting of Bly Manor a great place to visit, though we wouldn’t want to live there.







GENRES: Atmospheric, Diverse Characters, Feminist-Friendly, LGBTQ+


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