Dorothy Mills is a psychological/supernatural mystery film which takes
place within a remote island community in Ireland. Little Dorothy, age 15
but seeming younger, went crazy while babysitting one day and hurt the
infant she was caring for. The Irish authorities sent a psychiatrist from
the mainland to evaluate the situation. The psychiatrist originally came
up with a diagnosis of multiple personality disorder - until the
psychological part of the mystery gave way to the supernatural.
The dramatic tension in this film centers around the true nature of
little Dorothy's multiple personalities. The psychiatrist thinks the
various characters being manifest are purely fabrications of Dorothy's
imagination, until ...
The premise is similar to the original version of The Wicker Man,
except that it establishes a dark, spooky atmosphere in the very first
scene, and maintains it throughout. The island is forbidding: jagged
cliffs, invariably overcast skies, permanently muddy ground, houses built
of rotting timber. The music is foreboding. The staring, taciturn,
unsmiling islanders look like refugees from a mental health clinic. All
about her, the psychiatrist sees hints that dark rituals are being
practiced involving communication with the dead and animal mutilations. To
an outsider, every local seems to be hiding terrifying secrets. The
islanders not only shield themselves from the outsider, but from each
other as well, and the island's tragic history never seems to vanish into
the past.
In addition to the creepy ambiance, the film's other big plus is a
tremendous lead performance from Jenn Murray. The character's unique
ability to channel other personalities requires Ms. Murray to play a
half-dozen parts and in each case to match them accurately to other people
playing those same parts in other times and places. She manages to
impersonate the other actors accurately enough that it can be difficult to
determine whether any given character on screen is a flashback from the
past or Jenn Murray impersonating that character. When she channels a
male, the DP tends to keep the camera off of her at first so that she can
sustain the illusion with her voice. When she channels a female, it takes
the pause button to determine whether the person on screen is the actress
playing lady X, or little Dorothy channeling X.
By the way, the star of this film, playing the psychiatrist, is the
Dutch actress Carice van Houten, whose impeccable English is absolutely
uncanny. The only accent I could hear was her inability to say the "th"
sound in "the," and that may not have been her own accent, but an attempt
to duplicate the sound of some regional Irish accent. (If you've been
there, you know many natives say "ting" instead of "thing.") She was
playing a character with a Dutch name, so I'm not really sure whether she
was trying to incorporate any Irish sounds into her vocal range. Either
way, she has an impressive phonetic command of a language which is not her
own.
The film's solid direction is not a surprise given that the director is
Agnes Merlet, who seemed to have a truly promising career about a decade
ago, after the release of Artemisia. I'm not sure what happened to Merlet
in the interim, but this is her first credit since then. That's about 11
years between films. She still displays plenty of talent at the helm, but
I was not as impressed by her script, which seemed to follow all the usual
predictable paths, offer all the usual horror film foreshadowing, and draw
upon the usual characters and clichés. A lot of the details don't make
sense if you think back upon them once you know all the secrets, and the
story culminates in one of those endings that leaves the audience
thinking, "That's it?", not in the sense that it doesn't provide closure,
but in the sense of "C'mon. They couldn't think of any better way to end
it?"
The film has a decent rating in the 6s at IMDb, which is about right in
terms of the skill involved. It's crafted well enough that a lower score
would be unjust, but it's a slow burner with limited appeal. It's not a
film with mainstream potential, since it is monotonous and lacks stars,
humor, and action. Neither it is a film that will appeal to most fans of
modern horror films, since it is laid-back, treads on familiar ground, is
lacking in "boo" moments, and has almost no gore on screen. In recognition
of the film's limited appeal, distributors in North America and the UK
didn't take the bait offered by a Cannes screening, and the only reviews
currently online are in French and German.
