This is a modern version of the classic MR James ghost story 'Whistle and I'll Come To You'. To his credit Neil Cross has tried to find a modern way into the story and has turned it into a tale about a man whose wife is lost to Alzheimer's. Unfortunately what emerges has little resonance (the Alzheimer's stuff is patently phony--sorry Neil all sufferers from the illness do not act like corpses)and also zero connection to the original. All that survives is a lonely hotel by the seaside, a lonely man and...well not much else. Not even the whistle remains. The writer might just as well have stopped trading on the classic name and author and done an original story . Except of course if he had it would never have been made. Nobody is saying we need a slavish copy. Jonathan Miller's earlier classic version was recognisably the same story but it was still changed to brilliant effect. Cross just grafts a mediocre ending on and leaves it at that. The result is quite atmospherically directed but all else goes for nothing. What exactly was the point?
Review of Whistle and I'll Come to You
Whistle and I'll Come to You
(2010 TV Movie)
Finally a very poor adaptation of a classic
17 November 2012