 Critics disagreed about how successful the film was in capturing the novel 's ambiguity , which is part of the enduring appeal of James 's story . For Tim Dowling , a columnist for The Guardian , the film failed in this regard . The novella , Dowling explained , can be understood as a straightforward ghost story , but it can also be understood as a story about Ann 's madness , and there is further ambiguity concerning whether the children are being controlled by Quint and Jessel , or whether the children are controlling Ann . He suggested that " there 's probably a subtlety to all this ambiguity on the page which , when translated to the screen , just looks like having it both ways . " As a result , " the narrative was at times more evasive than ambiguous " . Whittaker felt that the film failed to appropriately present the novella 's ambiguity and implicit themes , saying that the adaptation " feels oddly obligated to fill in all those blanks , and it 's really the script 's fault " . Sutcliffe expressed a similar view ; for example , he noted that " when the governess sees Quint on the tower for the first time so do we , and the thing that really haunts us as we read the story — uncertainty — vanishes to be replaced by a much duller kind of <unk> , about when something is next going to pop out at us . " By contrast , Chater and Teeman ( both writing for The Times ) felt the ambiguity of the film was praiseworthy , with Chater asking whether the ghosts truly exist or are just a manifestation of " hysterical imagination " , and Teeman suggesting that viewers will be more likely to believe ( with Dr Fisher ) that Ann 's retelling is accurate . The Scotsman 's Whitelaw praised Welch 's ability to balance the various subtexts of the film while still delivering an effective narrative . 
