Director Lenny Abrahamson’s much-anticipated follow up to his Oscar-winning Room has a more expansive setting – but is no less claustrophobic. Based on Sarah Waters’ bestseller, The Little Stranger goes back to the late 1940s – and further – with the action taking place in a vast, eerily gothic mansion. One where strange, inexplicable things happen.
With an impressive cast headed by Domhnall Gleeson, it’s set in the years immediately following World War II and follows Gleeson’s Doctor Faraday as he sets up practice near the declining ancestral home of the Ayres family, which played an important part in his childhood. Now occupied by Mrs Ayres (Charlotte Rampling), her son Roderick (Will Poulter) and daughter Caroline (Ruth Wilson), the house feels haunted in some mysterious way. And, as Faraday becomes more involved with the family, he begins to understand what’s really happening.
Part gothic drama, part suspenseful thriller, it is, as Abrahamson explains in this interview with The Hollywood News, deliberately ambiguous, giving the audience something of a puzzle to solve. He also talks about his own individual style as a director and looks forward to chairing the jury at next month’s London Film Festival.
Watch the interview in full below and read our review of the movie here.
The Little Stranger is released in the UK on Friday, 21 September 2018.
