Things Heard & Seen
JAMES NORTON AND AMANDA SEYFRIED star in a spooky psychological thriller
Netflix
James Norton and Amanda Seyfried star in this thriller as a husband and wife whose marriage harbours sinister secrets.
Things Heard & Seen From Thursday 29 April, Netflix
Happy Valley AND Mcmafia actor James Norton adopts an American accent for a new one-off thriller this week when he plays the role of George Clare, a New York college professor who moves upstate with his wife, Catherine, and their daughter, Franny, to a small town in the countryside.
At first glance, the family’s home in the Hudson Valley is picture-perfect, but as the Clares start settling in to the local community, it doesn’t take long for their new life to unravel as dark secrets are slowly revealed about the house – and the Clares’ marriage, too.
Set in the 1980s, the drama also stars Mank’s Amanda Seyfried as artist Catherine, who begins to sense the former dairy farm is housing troubling secrets when spooky things begin to happen – from strange noises, lights and sensations to the discovery of a Bible from the 1800s with ‘Damned’ written over a former occupant’s name.
METAPHYSICS
‘It’s a story that has ghosts and murder, but it also has real emotional drama,’ says director and co-writer Shari Springer Berman, who adapted the story from Elizabeth Brundage’s bestselling
novel All Things Cease to Appear. ‘It’s more of a supernatural tale than a horror story, and it asks a lot of big questions about karma and the nature of life and death.’ With things going bump in the night, Catherine decides to research the house’s dark past, unaware that George already knows exactly what happened there and is working hard to keep it from her.
The house’s history is not the only secret Catherine’s charismatic husband is keeping from her. George is having an affair with a young woman, Willis (Stranger
Things’ Natalia Dyer), while Catherine finds herself drawn to the mysterious Eddy (Colony’s
Alex Neustaedter).
PSYCHODRAMA
‘The real horror of the story is the marriage!’ says co-creator Robert Pulcini. ‘One of the things that I loved about the book is that it took me on this journey that I didn’t expect. It started off spooky, and then I started really getting engaged with these characters and with this world.
‘With the film, my hope is that viewers go in with certain expectations and come out with a different experience than what they anticipated. It is more of a literary ghost story, in the tradition of [Henry James’] The Turn of the
Screw. And there’s a Gothic kind of quality to it, with Catherine searching for her freedom and with the supernatural element.’
The producers were keen to cast Norton in the film from the outset, but it looked as if the actor’s prior commitments would prevent him from taking part.
‘James was the first person we met and we fell in love with him, but he wasn’t available,’ reveals Pulcini. ‘So we went on this long casting journey, exploring other options. Then we got an email out of the blue saying he could do it.’
‘His show got pushed back that he was working on,’ adds Springer Berman. ‘So he suddenly had a window and we were like, “Yes!” So that worked out really well.
He’s just an incredible actor and we are huge fans of his work.’
‘It asks a lot of big questions about karma and the nature of life and death’
SHARI SPRINGER BERMAN