The Master is charming, and quite sweeps the young Miss off her feet. He offers her an attractive salary to look after his young nephew and niece at his country mansion. But he has a strange stipulation. She must never bother him about the children, on any account.

She is convinced she has seen an unpleasant looking man in the house. When she describes him to the housekeeper Mrs Grose recognises him as Peter Quint, the Master's old valet. But Mrs Grose explains that Peter Quint is dead. Then the governess sees another figure—Miss Jessel— the children's former governess and Quint's lover, who died as a result of Quint's seduction and betrayal.

"It is one of the most argued over books of this century. Are the ghosts real, or is the governess psychotic. The Master manipulates this girl and tries to make use of  what he perceives as his power to exploit her vulnerability."

But he admits he is not a fan of watching costume drama.

"Despite my reputation for costume drama, I am not drawn to watching it on television. But I  have not steered away from it as a result of playing Darcy. I don't want to be held hostage to  that. If I am offered something irresistible, and it means wearing a costume like Darcy's, then I will do it," says Colin.

Colin says he certainly found the Henry James story irresistible.  "I love The Turn of the Screw. I love the mystery of it. When ghost stories are told well, they are brilliant. But they are incredibly rare. It is a perpetually misjudged form of story telling. "The Turn of the Screw is one of the models of ghost story telling. It is a gripping portrait of a  person's psychology. The overwhelming majority of people who attempt such stories fall into  the trap of wanting to explain everything. The golden rule of ghost stories is don't reveal all. And that is the beauty of this Henry James story."

Colin recalls reading the book, and watching the chilling film The Haunting. The terrifying Don't Look Now, is one of his favourite films, he says.

"I like the mood of a ghost story. It is perfect for a wintry night, sitting by the fire, watching a ghost story which gives you a chill and provokes the imagination. If I am here at Christmas that is what I will be watching,"says Colin.

He says he doesn't believe in ghosts, but admits he had some "uncanny and inexplicable" experiences. "When I was a teenager I dreamt up all sorts of things, but as I've got older I've found explanations for those experiences."

"I remember listening to a radio adaptation of the story years ago, which was genuinely scary. The prospect of seeing people who you know in your own mind cannot possibly be appearing before you is terrifying. What is most terrifying for Miss is that she sees something which other people don’t.

"I saw her character as somebody who had to believe she was not wrong, irrational or mad about what she could see, but that she was actually an incredibly rational and judicious person."

"Miss is at an age where she is becoming more sexually aware, and she has an infatuation with the master. But it exists purely within the realms of fantasy, and she is not in a social position where a relationship between them could become a reality. When she meets him it is the first time she has been outside the family home, and sat alone with a man without a chaperone."

On set Jodhi was "chaperoned " by the production team as the intimate scenes between Miss and the Master were filmed. The Miss is driven by her feelings for the Master. Her thoughts are dominated by images of him. She is motivated by the responsibility the Master has placed on her.

"Colin Firth was lovely, a complete joy to work with. But he was only on set for a day," Jodhi laments.

She is a big fan of Henry James' work.  "Henry James anticipated the whole Freud thing. The books I like to read about psychology refer to James' work because of the way it was ahead of its time in terms of understanding sexuality. I am interested in psychology because it is my job to understand what makes people tick," says Pam.

"I think our interpretation of the story is very faithful to the original. Sometimes with costume drama you do have to change things for a modern audience because you don't want them to be misinterpreted."

"I had never seen this woman before, so when I turned round and saw her among the reeds I nearly had a heart attack. I thought I was hallucinating. She was so convincing, as if she had leapt out of the pages of the book, that my heart was in my mouth."

"I didn't find the filming scary, and I liked the actor who played Quint, he wasn't spooky at all. I remember mum telling me when she played Betty in The Crucible she had to pretend to be scared, and scream as loud as she could. She was more concerned about screaming loudly than being frightened. That is how felt when I was filming The Turn of the Screw. I was concentrating so much on getting every thing right there wasn't time to be frightened of the story."

"We've tried to be faithful to James' intentions to grip the audience with a powerful ghost story and use it to explore a young woman’s dilemma.

"I hope the twists and turns the film gives to the tradition of the Christmas ghost story will appeal to a wide audience."

Writer Nick Dear resisted the use of special effects to create the spine chilling moments in his screenplay.

“I decided I would make the screenplay straight, and not fiddle around with it, to do as much justice to the original story as possible. I wanted to play on the ambiguity in Henry James' novel as to whether the ghosts are real or figments of the governess' imagination.”

In preparing the scripts he researched Henry James' work, and was intrigued to discover that in correcting the original manuscripts for The Turn of the Screw, James had actually made details less clear, and increased the level of ambiguity about what was real and what was not.

Nick says he was also interested in the psychological process the governess travels through, and her “overdeveloped standard of Christian values and how children should behave.”

The Turn of the Screw was first published in serial form in an American periodical, Collier’s, in 1898. It appeared in book form and won glowing praise from reviewers:

The story which James described in a letter to his neighbour in Rye, H.G.Wells, as a “pot boiler” has puzzled and fascinated readers for decades. It provoked much debate among literary critics over the ambiguity of whether the ghosts were real merely hallucinations of the governess.
 

The Times (12/18/99)
It is a stunningly beautiful production, all Vermeer interiors, if only the governess did not look like a cetacean (Dinosaur) hoovering up krill.... Intense attraction to the Master (Colin 'naked Darcy' Firth) is captured with a slightly open mouth.... [The plot should be] familiar from its many stagings. [There are ] four distinctive characters, plus two apparitions.
 

Was she really seeing ghosts? Were the children possessed? "For heaven's sake, woman," I shouted at her, "phone a friend!"

The Birmingham Post (12/23/99) by Graham Keal
Jodhi May isn't the first and won't be the last young woman to look longingly at Colin 'Mr Darcy' Firth with barely recognised stirrings of suppressed sexual desire.  Mind you, in her role as the Governess in ITV's classy, scalp-tingling new Boxing Day version of the great Henry James ghost story, The Turn of the Screw, she's the only one who gets the chance. He appears in just one scene, alone with her. [...]

Firth's single scene casts him as the Master, the rich, unmarried young(ish) man left with sole responsibility for his orphaned nephew and niece, Miles and Sarah, a responsibility he wants to be rid of.

But as the Governess—referred to only as Miss throughout—she is all of a flutter with her new employer's flattering, manipulative attentions: 'Miss is at an age where she is coming more sexually aware, and she has an infatuation with the Master.  But it exists purely in the realms of fantasy. She is not in a social position where a relationship between them could become a reality. When she meets him it is the first time she has been outside the family home and sat alone with a man, without a chaperone.'

It is a fantasy that you will not find fleshed out in the original story, where Miss's infatuation with the Master is only hinted at.

The opening scene between them is a clever device by Nick Dear, who wrote the screenplay, to make plain what is no more than a subtle backdrop to the book. The Master's desire is to recruit a governess who agrees to the stipulation that she will take full responsibility for the children's upbringing at his distant country seat and never, on any account, trouble him with their news.

Miss arrives at the house to a rousing welcome from kindly, maternal housekeeper Mrs Grose (a perfect role for Pam Ferris) and finds she has pride of place in a superb mansion, with two delightful children as her companions and pupils.

But the previous governess, Miss Jessel, committed suicide, and the Master's former valet, Peter Quint, has left a malign influence in the house since his own death.

When Miss starts seeing a mysterious man and woman whom she later learns to be the ghosts of Jessel and Quint, she is soon convinced that the children see the ghosts too and are in some kind of evil, secret pact with them.  She believes only she can save their souls. Jodhi's wide-eyed looks prove very suitable for the goggling horror with which she greets these apparitions.

The question for viewers is, are her visions real and is she right about the children, or is she a hysterical woman on the verge of insanity?

'I saw her character as somebody who had to believe she was not wrong, irrational or mad about what she could see, but that she was actually an incredibly rational and judicious person,' says Jodhi. [...]

The Turn of the Screw... is a beautifully restrained exercise in suspense. If you want to see something this Christmas to make the hairs on your neck bristle, this one's for you.

TimeOut by Tom Howard
...Henry James' 1898 ghost story 'The Turn Of The Screw', adapted by Nick Dear. Unfortunately, as is often the case with period dramas and is certainly the case with this one, a classic novel does not necessarily result in a classic piece of TV drama.

Jodhi May plays the Governess, sent to a country house to look after the niece  and nephew of a London gent she refers to as the Master (Colin Firth) during the summer. While going about her duties the nameless Governess is spooked by ghostly apparitions and the strange behaviour of the seemingly innocent children, Miles and Flora.

It's a bizarre tale that is not particularly easy to get a handle on even in the book, so it will be confusing to the average viewer who tunes in without being familiar with Henry James’ work. Sexual tension between the Governess and the Master is hinted at in the opening scene, yet this is then virtually ignored. Her increasingly unhinged behaviour seems absurdly melodramatic. The background to her character and the motivations for her behaviour are thin on the ground, and Jodhi May is not a good enough actress to suggest any. Ultimately, her blank bewilderment becomes increasingly irritating.

Oh, and Darcy fans: if ITV’s marketing has prompted you to tune in in anticipation of a hefty dose of Colin Firth, you will be disappointed. He’s on screen for a grand total of five minutes. Better to wait for the movie version, 'The Innocents', at 1.35am on C4.

The Birmingham Post (12/27/99) by Mike Davies
A sparse, stripped back The Turn Of The Screw (Carlton) provided the annual ghost tale. The decision to make manifest the evil spirits, to ignore the governess's sexual repression and the possibility of the children's mental unbalance would have upset fans of the novel's psychological textures, but with an excellent turn from Jodhi May (though a five-minute cameo hardly warranted Colin Firth's star billing) it still delivered chilling suspense.

Scotland on Sunday (1/2/00)
[I]t was the unexpected Boxing Day treat, The Turn of the Screw (ITV), a mesmerising two-hour adaptation of Henry James' ghost story, which matched opulence and clarity to generate a genuine frisson of terror without resorting to the usual Hollywood-style bucketloads of SFX.

...The Turn of the Screw proved similarly adroit at sucking the viewer into its grip. Adapted by Nick Dear and directed by Ben Bolt, this story of the artless young governess (Jodhi May) being employed by a gentleman (Colin Firth) to look after his two children, Miles and Flora, reeked with unspoken terror and brooding menace from the outset and built up towards a climax which was shatteringly portrayed.

Until now, previous variants on this creepy Jamesian tale—as in The Innocents, which Channel 4 screened, presumably by chance, only a few hours later—have revolved around one central question: is the governess mad or deranged? But here, the impressive May, hiking up the paranoia and apprehension without resorting to hammy over-indulgence, left us in absolutely no doubt about her fears for her charges as spectral presences loomed ever nastier in the woodshed.

The Observer (1/2/00)
For Pride and Prejudice fans who didn't know the story, I suspect that seeing Colin Firth smouldering Firthishly at the beginning of Boxing Day's The Turn of the Screw constituted an almighty tease because, of course, he was never seen again. Fortunately, this was a very superior, spooky adaptation of the Henry James chiller with Jodhi May, as the governess, admirably handling her character's leisurely, sun-dappled spiral into haunted paranoia without ever resorting to melodrama, so we didn't miss Firth too much.

Nick Dear's screenplay hinted, modishly, at some messily repressed and righteously God-fearing Victorian sexuality, while the children playing the governess's two charges, Miles and Flora, were not half as revolting as they might have been, given that they were in almost every scene and may (or may not) have been demonically inclined. The least enviable part, however, went to Pam Ferris as the housekeeper, Miss Grose primarily a reactive, unflashy role, forced to feed off lines delivered by May and the children.

Watching The Turn of the Screw made me realise how refreshing it is to go cold turkey with old-fashioned spine-tingling terror on Boxing Day. Not only aren't there enough 'Oooh! Beeee-hind You! Aaargh, No, Don't You Go Down That Corridor in The Dark!' ghost stories on TV any more, but there can never be enough antidotes to the kind of smug Yuletide cosiness which involves Charlotte Church telling viewers, with all the irony that only a 13-year-old is incapable of mustering, to go and buy her CD before singing 'Let your dreams be wings and fly as far as a star' on Des O'Connor (oh, I will, Charlotte I will).

Interesting, though, that the commercials punctuating The Turn of the Screw were so feminine (Fiat Punto, shampoo, lime leather horrorshow sofas from DFS ). Are ghost stories and Dickensian adaptations (and, come to that, Colin Firth) really only aimed at gurly-wurlies?

Variety (2/24/00) by Sherri Linden
Filmed countless times for both the bigscreen and the tube, Henry James' timeless ghost story still carries a provocative charge. This straightforward,  solid adaptation for Masterpiece Theatre brings nothing especially new to the rich material, but fine performances and a seamless production deliver the requisite chills. There may be no burning reason for yet another screen version of the masterful short novel, other than the profound pull of  the story, but perhaps that’s reason enough.

Russell Baker’s introductory comments shed some light on the author’s state of mind when he penned “The Turn of the Screw,” but a century later, its central questions remain wide open to interpretation: Are the events unfolding at country house, Bly, visitations from the other  side, the expression of a repressed young woman’s hysteria, the effects of child abuse or the machinations of a murderously manipulative household?

Script by Nick Dear places slight emphasis on the central character’s unexpressed sexuality with more-than-glancing suggestions of her complicity in the dark doings; telepic makes quite clear the young governess’ (Jodhi May) attraction to the bachelor (Colin Firth) who hires her to take care of his orphaned nephew and niece.

Thesps fully exploit the brief scene of flirtation and foreboding, the only one in which the two characters meet. Firth is convincing as the absentee uncle who has “not a penny worth of paternal understanding” and who insists on not being troubled once the new governess assumes her post. 

May’s blushing young parson’s daughter thrills at his physical closeness, even as she wonders  about the enormity of the responsibility, her first job and the circumstances of her predecessor’s death.

No sooner is she installed as head of the estate than 10-year-old Miles (Joe Sowerbutts) is expelled from school for unstated reasons, and specters of the former governess and another dead servant start making appearances.

The (unnamed) new governess is certain that Miles and his younger sister (Grace Robinson),
disturbingly well behaved and as picture-perfect as two kids can be, are also aware of the presence of Miss Jessel and Peter Quint, and are under their corrupting spell. 

As she pieces together her conspiracy theory, housekeeper Mrs. Grose (Pam Ferris) serves as the young woman’s sounding board, sometimes sympathetic, sometimes doubting.

In its final stages, this is a two-hander, the story reaching its ultimate crisis in the faceoff between
the governess and her increasingly defiant charge Miles.

The actors play up the confrontation, and the relationship as a whole, for every ominous ambiguity they’re worth. May is a compelling presence as the devout young woman who,  convinced she’s come face to face with evil, is determined to save her “innocent babies” from the ill intentions of the dead lovers. 

And as the ultra-polite, “Hamlet”-quoting sprig who addresses his governess as “my dear,” Sowerbutts conveys just the right mix of boyish charm and unnerving knowingness.

Ferris, Firth and Robinson provide strong support.

Under Ben Bolt’s steady direction, this telling of the mystery may lack the stylish, atmospheric horror of the 1961 Deborah Kerr starrer “The Innocents,” perhaps the finest film version of the
story, but it is nonetheless a polished rendition of the haunting, enigmatic tale. 

Pat Campbell’s production design, David Odd’s cinematography and Sheena Napier’s costumes evoke the idyllic period setting, often in sunny contrast to the story’s psychological shadow realm. The music soundtrack by Adrian Johnston is effective and unobtrusive; like everything else in this production, it refuses to go for the obvious.