Voice from the Stone (2017)

Voice from the Stone (2017)

IMDB Rating 5.5/10 (as on 03.05.2017)

R | 1h 34min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

Set in 1950s Tuscany, Voice from the Stone is the haunting and suspenseful story of Verena, a solemn nurse drawn to aid a young boy who has fallen silent since the sudden passing of his mother.

Director: Eric D. Howell

Writers: Silvio Raffo (novel), Andrew Shaw (screenplay)

Stars: Emilia Clarke, Marton Csokas, Caterina Murino

IMDB link Here

Movie rating ★★✬☆   

Hitchcockian chills, stylishly delivered

Michael O'Sullivan  

The elegantly spooky atmosphere practically drips from “Voice From the Stone,” a romantic-supernatural thriller based on the acclaimed 1996 novel by Silvio Raffo (shortlisted for Italy’s Strega Prize). Set in a Tuscan mansion in the 1950s and centering on a young woman (Emilia Clarke) who has been hired to care for a child who hasn’t uttered a word since his mother’s death 7 ½ months earlier, the film looks handsome and expensive, building up a nice head of suspense before sputtering to a less than wholly satisfying conclusion.

The first-time feature filmmaker lays on the Hitchcockian overtones with a mason’s trowel, constructing a solid, if slightly derivative, movie melodrama of the kind they don’t make anymore.

Although the horror touches are kept to a minimum — mostly in the form of the estate’s creepy groundskeeper, game warden and jack-of-all-other-trades (Remo Girone) — the film nicely leverages the eerie qualities of the setting: a crumbling, centuries-old stone building, complete with mausoleum, that lends the film’s title only the most explicit level of meaning. Other interpretations of “stone” refer to the seemingly mute Jakob, as well as to the father, a sculptor who drags out an unfinished marble portrait of his late wife — in the nude — that he asks Verena to sit for, after he notices an uncanny resemblance between the women.

Yes, Dad’s initial coldness to Verena thaws considerably over the course of the film, taking the story in a direction that, while not surprising, may be something of a letdown for those hoping for a more paranormal outcome. Although there’s a haunted-ness to “Voice,” it has more to do with its characters’ psychological states, rather than any literal poltergeist.

And that’s not entirely a criticism. There’s a smartness and realness to the film that keeps it grounded, despite some Edgar Allen Poe-like moments of the macabre.

“Voice From the Stone” is a handsome, old-fashioned film. Fans of haunted-house movies may be disappointed. But anyone who knows the depth of grief — and who recognizes the seemingly insurmountable wall it seems to build around you and the rest of the world — will feel the chills that this movie delivers deep in their bones.

Read full review at Washington post