The Awakening

The Awakening is a 2011 British supernatural drama film directed by Nick Murphy and written by Stephen Volk and Murphy. The film stars Rebecca Hall as a writer and ghost hunter who investigates the haunting of a boys' boarding school in post-World War I England. The ensemble cast includes Dominic West, Isaac Hempstead-Wright and Imelda Staunton. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 16 September 2011. , it has an approval rating of on Rotten Tomatoes. Plot In 1921, Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) is a published author who works with the police to expose fraudulent spiritualists. It is revealed that she lost her fiancé in the First World War and that she "hunts" ghosts in an attempt to see if it is possible to bring him back. She receives a visit from Robert Mallory (Dominic West), a teacher from a boys' boarding school in Cumbria that had been a private home until 20 years earlier. Robert explains that there have been sightings of the ghost of a child at the school and that such a sighting might have been the cause of the recent death of a pupil. Although Florence initially refuses to help Robert investigate, his concern for the children at the boarding school - whom he describes as being almost like orphans - causes her to change her mind, since she is an orphan herself. At the school, she meets Maud Hill (Imelda Staunton), the housekeeper, who tells Florence that she has read her books. After she conducts an investigation on her first night at the school, Florence comes to the conclusion that the sightings are the result of a prank, as two pupils had bullied a third into dressing as a ghost. With regard to the recent death, one of the teachers admits that he had forced the deceased pupil to stand outside the school in order to toughen him up after he claimed to have seen the ghost, thus scaring the young boy and causing him to have a fatal asthma attack. The school then closes for half-term with the only occupants being Florence, Robert, Maud, and Tom (Isaac Hempstead-Wright), a pupil whose parents live in India.