The Weight of Water
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.43 You Save: $11.55 (77%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Weight of Water
Movie Review: The Weight of Editing
Summary: 2 Stars
While there are many interesting things about this movie, the ending sinks the drama. While I was convinced that Thomas drowns, my wife thought he didn't; so any film that leaves you with that large of a plot hole sinks from the weight of editing. "The Weight of Water" was introduced in 2000 at the Toronto film festival and then not released for 2 years. Katherine Bigelow who has directed "Point Break" and "K-19: The Widowmaker" with Harrison Ford does a good job of filming two parallel stories, although they don't really have any relationship to each other.
The actors do turn in some interesting performances and are a joy to watch even if the film doesn't completely make sense. British actress Catherine McCormack who was so memorable in Mel Gibson's "Brave Heart" and also appeared in "Dancing at Lughnasa" with Meryl Streep and "The Tailor of Panama" gives an edgy performance as photographer Jean Janes whose marriage is on the ropes. She does a splendid job of being attracted to her husband, her brother-in-law, being frigid, and worrying about her husband's attraction to the oh-so-topless Adaline playing with an ice cube on the deck of the boat. Perhaps a tad less nervous, this is the type of performance that Jane Fonda used to nail.
Elizabeth Hurley who gained fame as Hugh Grant's girlfriend while he was cruising the streets, gives a seductive, albeit one-note performance, as a poet groupie.
Sean Penn didn't add to his 3 Oscar nominations ("Dead Man Walking," "Sweet & Lowdown," "I Am Sam") with this film, but does an interesting job of portraying a troubled poet with a haunted past.
Josh Lucas isn't as memorable as he was in "Sweet Home Alabama," nor does his performance have neither the meat of "An Incredible Mind" nor the entertainment value of "The Hulk." However, he looks great on the boat and seems to have some emotional variety in the scene where he swims out to check on his sister-in-law.
The past story that is edited back and forth with the present also boasts some interesting performances. Most notable is Sarah Polley as Maren who appeared in the very confusing beauty & the beast-type tale "No Such Thing." I don't know what she'll have to do in the upcoming "Dawn of the Dead," but here she gives a multifaceted performance as the lonely, isolated wife of a fisherman who was banished from her home for getting a bit too close to her brother. The scene where she also gets a bit too close to her brother's wife played by Vinessa Shaw who got a bit too close to Tom Cruise in "Eyes Wide Shut" is an eye opener.
The late Katrin Cartlidge does an excellent job as the straight-laced judgmental sister Karen who should've kept her mouth shut and winds up as one of the 2 corpses. Ulrich Thomsen plays husband John Hontvendt is a less than memorable role. Danish soap star Anders W. Berthelsen plays Maren's beloved brother. Irish actor Ciaran Hinds from "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover" plays Louis Wagner who is accused and executed for the murders.
This is an interesting film to watch for the performances, although the editing and the ending may leave you scratching your head to figure out what went on. Taxi!
Movie Review: Wow-- it's impressive how much of a mess this is.
Summary: 2 Stars
The Weight of Water (Kathryn Bigelow, 2000)
This movie should have been a big production-- an adaptation of an Anita Shreve novel directed by Near Dark's Kathryn Bigelow, starring a handful of big-name actors. So why does it seem like a Lifetime Original Movie(TM) on steroids?
Jean Janes (Shadow of the Vampire's Catherine McCormack) is obsessed with a pair of murders that occurred on the Isles of Shoals in 1873, when Louis Wagner (Rome's Ciaran Hinds) was convicted of the murders of two women and executed. Jean isn't sure they got the right person. She and her poet husband Thomas (Sean Penn) set off for the islands on a boat with Thomas' brother Rich (Josh Lucas, recently of Poseidon) and Rich's new girlfriend Adaline (Elizabeth Hurley, who went from this right on to film Bedazzled). The interpersonal relationships on the boat cause tensions to flare, as everyone seems to want pretty much everyone else, and the situation on the boat brings Jean to a possible revelation of an alternative theory of the crime.
It's an interesting premise, and from everything I've heard it's carried off quite successfully in the book, which I haven't read. But oh, it doesn't work well at all in the film. The links between the two stories are shown only by the way the two stories are intercut; no work at all was done on trying to parallel the two in any structural way. Most of the actors are wasted here; even the vastly talented McCormack seems only a shadow of her usual irrepressible self, while Sarah Polley, whose story takes place over in the nineteenth century time frame, seems as if she's worn down by a lot more than inimical primitive island life. About the only actor who's really effective here is Hinds, who plays his role to the hilt.
It's not the worst movie I've seen in the past month, but it's pretty close. **
Movie Review: How to really watch this movie
Summary: 2 Stars
Get "Knife In The Water" and a documentary about Lizzy Borden, throw in some lesbians and some Ibsen, a short sleezy soft-porn film and take THAT home from the library. It couldn't be any more disjointed and silly than this mess. The actors are all phoning it in. If you want to see a film chopped into episodes, get "Kwaidan." If you want to see one where the bits all fit together, get "Pulp Fiction." I think "Weight" was supposed to be scary, but it's ridiculous. They wanted to throw people in the water off Halifax but they had to film the swimming scenes in Mexico -- because if you jump in the water off Halifax, you will freeze to death. Or you will come up screaming and covered in goose-bumps and that's not so attractive with a bikini. This thing is about as scary and goofy as "The Blair Witch Project."Movie Review: Elizabeth Hurley Topless
Summary: 2 Stars
This movie was hard to watch.......If it wasn't for Liz Hurley looking so tasty this movie would go straight into the scrap bin. Sean Penn is as good as ever but the movie just doesn't cut it. The most annoying thing was the back and forth......it just didn't sell it. If you are a Liz Hurley fan,this is a must see. She's the best thing since sliced bread.Movie Review: PRETENTIOUS NONSENSE
Summary: 1 Stars
While the novel on which this film is based may be worthy of praise, this pretentious nonsense is not. The direction is relatively strong, as pulling off a switch back and forth between the past and the present is never easy in film, but the problem is that neither the stories (past and present) nor the characters (past and particularly present) are even remotely interesting or compelling enough to carry the film. Sean Penn, normally a gifted actor, is so pretentious and studied in this film that he often comes off unintentionally hilarious. His dialogue alone is so pretentious it's difficult to endure for more than a few minutes. He speaks with "poetic language" because he's a poet!--Get it? Suffice to say that subtlety is not something this film has. It mistakes forced situations chock full of over-brooding for something of value rather than what it is: pretentious foolishness. Elizabeth Hurley has some nude scenes, which is what's gained most of the attention for this movie, but her performance, while written in as limited a manner as the rest of the stereotypes wandering around this mess, is actually one of the better in the film, in my opinion. But in the end, neither the past "mystery" nor the present "angst-fest" holds any real weight. Come to find out, the weight of this water is pretty light, it just tries to look heavy.