PLOT: An overwrought mother-daughter relationship is thrown into crisis when they are obliged to move into a dingy New York apartment which may be haunted by a desperate ghost.
It is not clear what Dark Water really is or what it wants to do as a movie.
It may be a low-tech, high concept, horror flick which uses issues of martial breakup, child abandonment and mental instability merely to heighten the fear factor. Or it may be a heart-wrenching drama that uses the ghost story genre as a means to focus our attention on serious human issues.
Either way you look at it, Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles (Central Station, The Motorcycles Diaries) falters a bit in his first English-language U.S. movie, which is in turn a remake of a Japanese horror movie. Salles' screenwriter, Rafael Yglesias, adapted both the Koji Suzuki novel and the Hideo Nakata film Dark Water to make the new version.
Despite spinning a convincing tale in the first two acts, Salles' final act is so awkwardly staged, with its multiple endings and brutal tragedy, that the overall result is as murky as the discoloured water of the metaphorical title. You may even have trouble distinguishing between what is real and what is imagined as the tale concludes.
None of the problems are generated by the impressive cast of mostly veteran actors, each of whom is scarily good in service of whatever it is Salles is trying to put across as he brings Rafael Yglesias' screenplay to life.
Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) is the marquee star but she is stripped of all glamour to play the lead role -- and she delivers to shattering effect.
The character is a newly separated, emotionally unstable single mom. Things get worse when she is forced to move to a dank apartment in a highrise on New York's Roosevelt Island (although most of the movie was shot in Toronto).
The place may be haunted by a ghost of a child who is the same age as Connelly's daughter (Ariel Gade, another of those wise-beyond-their-years child actors who seem like elders trapped in young bodies).
The building manager (John C. Reilly) is a sleaze who neglects to fix serious plumbing problems, including the steady leak of stained water dripping through the ceiling as New York is hit by near monsoons. The building super (Pete Postlethwaite) is a creepy presence who adds to the sense of doom overtaking the structure and infecting Connelly's life. A lawyer (the chameleon Tim Roth) adds the movie's only levity.
Behind the scenes but clearly at the heart of the crisis, our heroine is fearful that she will fail her daughter, just as her own mother failed her, leaving her emotionally scarred. The angry ex-husband (Dougray Scott) exacerbates the situation.
The movie slides between dreamscapes and reality. When it veers into horror, the special effects are old-school in style, making otherworldly events more plausible. That is why Dark Water plays more like a drama than a contemporary horror (call it the Japanese influence, because their movie scares are delivered through psychology, not just gore).
But, either as a horror movie or as a drama, Dark Water gets plugged up. It could leave you feeling empty at the end.
(This film is rated PG)
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