Jennifer Connelly in DARK WATER (2005).
© Touchstone Pictures
Reviewed Format: Theatrical Release
Rated: PG-13
Stars: Jennifer Connelly, Ariel Gade, John C. Reilly, Dougray Scott, Tim Roth, Pete Postlethwaite
Writer: Rafael Yglesias, based on the novel by Koji Suzuki and the film directed by Hideo Nakata
Director: Walter Salles
Distributor: Touchstone Pictures
DARK WATER
By: Rachel ReitsleffDate: Sunday, July 10, 2005
DARK WATER is actually a very good thriller that successfully plays for a very long time with the question of whether or not our heroine, single mother Dahlia Williams (Jennifer Connelly), is having a breakdown or whether the supernatural is genuinely involved.
Through no fault of their own, the filmmakers are cursed with the bad timing of following several other American remakes of Japanese horror movies, two of them THE RING and THE RING 2 based on novels by HONOGURAI MIZUNO SOKO KARA (DARK WATER's Japanese title) author Koji Suzuki. Worse luck, DARK WATER comes out only four months after RING 2, aimed at the same audience, who may be very surprised to see certain almost identical plot elements emerge though it should be said that DARK WATER handles them better.
After seeing her as a lonely, abused child in an opening sequence, we meet Dahlia as an adult in tough straits. Engaged in a custody dispute with her angry former husband (Dougray Scott), Dahlia must find some kind of job and obtain decent housing for herself and young daughter Ceci (Ariel Gade). There's a $900 apartment only two blocks from a great school. With some reservations, Dahlia moves in and discovers the place has even more drawbacks than are evident on the outside, starting with a leaky ceiling, extending to possibly malevolent young neighbors and an imaginary friend who follows Ceci to school.
It's tough to discuss where this film echoes others without giving the game away, and in fairness, the fine details in Rafael Yglesias' screenplay are unique to this production. Director Walter Salles, writer Yglesias and actress Connelly all do expert work in making us honestly wonder if Dahlia is cracking up, being conspired against, truly haunted or perhaps all three.
The supporting cast is uncommonly rich for the genre, with John C. Reilly as the hearty, smarmy landlord's representative, Pete Postlethwaite as an intimidating maintenance man and Tim Roth as Dahlia's lawyer of questionable credentials all adding vigor and flavor and a kind of fun that provides an invigorating counterpoint to the pervasive gloom. Gade is very natural and appealing as Ceci and Scott plays her father close to the vest, appropriately making us wonder whether or not he's on the level.
Beautifully made and thoughtfully constructed, DARK WATER has a great deal of tension, solid craft and mood going for it. It's just lacks a sense of novelty.
