Review - The Haunting of Bly Manor (2021)

Following the phenomenal success of The Haunting of Hill House, Netflix and Mike Flanagan teamed up for what, despite its title, was not a Turn of the Screw mini-series but a broader adaptation of the works of Henry James. Returning cast-members from Hill House and other Flanagan projects--including Victoria Pedretti, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Henry Thomas, Kate Siegel, and Carla Gugino--play prominent roles, but newcomers like T’Nia Miller, Rahul Kohli, Tahira Sharif, Amelia Eve, Amelie Bea Smith, and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth also shine.

Criticisms I’ve seen of this show cite that it’s not a faithful adaptation of Turn of the Screw, though I don't see that as a bad thing necessarily. The Turn of the Screw provides a skeleton that Flanagan fleshes out with other Jamesian tales, including "The Romance of Certain Old Clothes," “The Jolly Corner,” and “Owen Wingrave.” Alternately, you might say James's works are like Lego blocks that Flanagan assembles into an original creation. The various stories don't always fit together neatly, but it's still an ambitious attempt.

The series opens in a frame, like the original story (and like the 1992 adaptation by Rusty Lemorande), with an unidentified woman (Gugino) telling a wedding party of events that occurred years earlier in the late 1980s. American au pair Dani Clayton (named after the director of The Innocents in one of many homages) takes a job at the English country estate Bly Manor where she forms friendships with the other staff members--housekeeper Hannah Grose (Miller), chef Owen (Kohli), and groundskeeper Jamie (Eve)--and cares for orphaned siblings Miles (Ainsworth) and Flora (Smith). Gradually, Dani (Pedretti) and others recognize that the sweet little children are behaving strangely. In fact, they’re possessed by deceased former servants Peter Quint (Jackson-Cohen) and Rebecca Jessel (Sharif), who themselves were victims of an older curse on the estate. The adults must pit themselves against these angry spirits in an effort to save the children.

Bly Manor spans nine episodes of varying length, and Flanagan pads out the main ghost story with soap opera-style flirtations and paternity revelations. Each episode focuses on a particular character, living or dead, giving the audience a chance to get to know each in detail, whether that knowledge inspires love or hate. The fifth episode, “The Altar of the Dead,” provided a shocking paradigm shift and was the highlight of the series. On the other hand, the final episode felt anticlimactic.

I liked the series for the most part. I especially appreciated how it focused on the children's point of view when interacting with Quint and Jessel; not only does this retelling take the position that the kids are indeed possessed, it spends significant time exploring what that experience is like. Overall, the series is a slow-burner, especially in its first half. Repetitious phrases like Flora’s favorite superlative “perfectly splendid” and the magic invocation “It’s you, it’s me, it’s us” sometimes make it feel more drawn out. Apart from a couple of memorable jump scares, the show is more melancholy than scary, particularly when compared to its predecessor. Nevertheless, I admire its scope and comprehensiveness and believe it is worth watching whether for Turn of the Screw purists or novices.