Jocelyn Noveck April 28, 2021 - 4:06 PM
Hollywood thrillers in which sophisticated, attractive city folk move to creaky old country homes and experience scary things are a dime a dozen. Less common is when those Hollywood thrillers are based on the theology of 18th-century Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg.
But here we are â a Swedenborgian thriller â and thus itâs not a bad idea to read up a bit on the man, by which we mean to Google him, before diving into âThings Heard & Seen,â a well-cast and often entertaining but campy and sometimes obvious thriller starring Amanda Seyfried and James Norton.
What youâll learn is that Swedenborg believed (among other things) that death was just a continuation of life â and that people lived on, in the spiritual world, past the expiration of their physical body. For the filmâs purposes, weâll boil it down for you: Ghosts!
If you went in thinking you d be able to fully comprehend Netflix s
Things Heard & Seen because you d read the Elizabeth Brundage novel it is based on, think again. The film which premiered April 29 sees the relationship between married couple George (James Norton) and Catherine Clare (Amanda Seyfried) begin to unravel after the family moves into an old farmhouse in Upstate New York. Eerie things begin happening at the house as Catherine realizes that George may not be all he says he is. These suspicions eventually result in her murder. Despite knowing who the killer is, the film s ending leaves us with more questions than answers.
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Hollywood thrillers in which sophisticated, attractive city folk move to creaky old country homes and experience scary things are a dime a dozen. Less common is when those Hollywood thrillers are based on the theology of 18th-century Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. But here we are a Sweden borgian thriller and thus it’s not a bad idea to read up a bit on the man, by which we mean to Google him, before diving into “Things Heard & Seen,” a well-cast and often entertaining but campy and sometimes obvious thriller starring Amanda Seyfried and James Norton. What you’ll learn is that Swedenborg believed (among other things) that death was just a continuation of life and that people lived on, in the spiritual world, past the expiration of their physical body. For the film’s purposes, we’ll boil it down for you: Ghosts! In fact the film, based on the novel “All Things Cease to Appear” by Elizabeth Brundage, begins with a Swedenborg quote: “Things that