I thought this would be a movie about a woman who suffers from schizophrenia or something of the sort, who hears voices and such. Instead, it's simply about a solitary old lady who gets taken advantage of, and whose husband comes in and out of her life. The whole "whisperers" thing is really just a minor subplot.
shareHi bd74, I've ordered a copy of the novel to see if there are any details that might help understand what the "whispering" was about.
I've got a theory: I think she had lived alone for so long and had become so isolated that the whispering was her husband's negative voice in her mind trying to pull her down, what she knew he would have said if he was there. The reason I think this is because when he actually came back after 20 years, she hardly spoke to him, and she didn't argue with him, although you could tell she didn't like what he said. That first night he was there, when he went out (and made the date with the prostitute), she said "Archie, Charlie," as if she was trying to reconcile the real people with the ones in her head.
We saw that Archie was the reason she had started hoarding newspapers--he became angry when she threw one away. After that, the place became a pigsty again. But when she decided he had left again, and began her old routine, she came home to a clean house and she smiled when she said, "Are you there?" for the final time in the film. She had everything back the way she could live with it.
I've probably read too much into some of this, but I do love Dame Edith Evans and think she put everything into the part, showing what it's like to be isolated from the world by the person's own mind as well as circumstances. I thought the character was so brave to go to the Free Library (free heat while she's waiting for the soup kitchen to open), and the Soup Kitchen every day.
Interesting theory, maryann-- but I don't see the whispers as being negative. I think they are positive soft 'voices' of comfort and familiarity (they keep her company when nobody else will). Whether these are in her head, or real sounds that inspire her imagination is almost irrelevant. The point is they prevent her from being utterly lonely.
I think it's a great title for this story.