Customer Reviews

Weight of Water

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

**1/2 In its basic structure and format, "The Weight of Water" is very similar to the far more impressive film "Possession" from 2002. In both movies, we get two different stories running simultaneously: one, a mystery set in the past, and, the other, a personal drama located in the present, involving a group of characters reflecting on and trying to make sense of the events that took place a century or so earlier.

The story-within-a-story in "The Weight of Water" is a true-life account of a brutal double murder that took place on a remote island off the coast of New Hampshire in the 1870's. Two out of the three women who were on the island that fateful night fell victim to the murderer, with the third escaping and fingering a man - a former boarder - as the culprit. The man was convicted and hanged for the offense, yet, more than a century later, a shadow of doubt hangs over the verdict. One of the modern-day doubters is Jean Janes, a photographer who ventures to the island to do a shoot of the location, only to find herself strangely obsessed with uncovering the truth about the case. Accompanying her on her quest are her husband, Thomas, a celebrated poet; Rich, his handsome brother whose boat they use to get to the island; and Adaline, the latter's gorgeous girlfriend who also happens to be a devotee of Thomas' literary work and a bit of a "groupie," as it turns out, in both tone and temperament, attaching herself rather obviously to the talented young bard, despite the fact that his observant wife is on the boat with them. As in "Possession," the filmmakers in this film - screenwriters Alice Arlen and Christopher Kyle and director Kate Bigelow - shift constantly between the past and the present, allowing us to piece together the clues as to what really happened on that island over 130 years ago, and, at the same time, to examine the strained relationships among those contemporary figures looking for the answers.

The problem with "The Weight of Water" - as it is in many films with this dual-narrative structure - is that one story almost inevitably ends up dominating over the other. Certainly, both tales seem to want to make the same unified point: that love and passion are often such overwhelming forces in our lives that they can end up destroying us in the process. How often do luck, fate, personal demons or societal pressure force us to compromise those elemental passions raging within our hearts, leading us, ultimately, to all the wrong choices and wrong partners that we end up having to live with for the rest of our lives? This is certainly the case in the part of the story set in the past where loneliness, regret, even incest and lesbianism play a crucial part in what happens to the characters. We can understand what motivates these individuals to do what they do, since their hungers, needs and intentions are cleanly laid out and clearly defined.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for the outer story set in the present. These characters lack the necessary delineation to make us truly understand where they are coming from or to make us care where they are going. Catherine McCormack does a superb job as Jean, capturing the fears, jealousies and anxieties of this insecure modern woman, but the screenplay doesn't let us into her mind enough to show us what is really going on beneath the surface. We know that she is unhappy in her marriage, but we never really get to know why. The situation is not helped one bit by Sean Pean who barely registers an emotion in the crucial role of Jean's husband. Apart from the fact that he seems to be brooding all the time, we never get the sense that Thomas could really be the world-class poet we are told he is. As Adaline, Josh's tawny-haired girlfriend, Hurley looks great in her bikini, of course, but the character is little more than the stereotypical temptress placed there by the writers to serve as a source of strain and tension on the marriage. The movie also builds to a mini- "Perfect Storm"-type climax that seems forced, phony, arbitrary and all too convenient and, worst of all, fails to make the connection between the two narratives clear and comprehensible. The final scenes seem strained at best, as the authors attempt to bring all the disparate elements together - but to no real avail. The fact is that the filmmakers never make their case as to why we should find any kind of meaningful parallels between the characters and events in the two stories. The characters in the past are obviously hemmed in by the repressive society in which they live so we give them a little leeway and offer them our sympathy; the characters in the present, with so many more options open to them, just come across as whiney and self-pitying and we find ourselves growing more and more impatient with them (all except Jean, that is) as the story rolls along.

"The Weight of Water" wants to be an important and meaningful film, but only one half of its story truly earns those adjectives.

(Let me say first that my rating is actually about 2.5, but I could not do that, so made it 3.) I had a chance to watch this film based on a novel by Anita Shreve (which I haven't read), and was interested in the names of the cast including Sean Penn, and the director Kathryn Bigelow. I am sorry to say that the entire film, though it has some intriguing premise and fantastic photography, somehow fell short of my expectation. But I don't know how you will receive this film, so I concentrate on writing factual aspects of this one. Let me hear your own opinions from you on Amazon later.

Some sources call "The Weight of Water" a thriller, but that is misleading. It is more like a drama with some psycological depth. "The Weight of Water" has two plots side by side, one set in today, the other in the past. The film follows both the mystery of the horrible ax murder in the past, and hidden envy or hatred between the apparently friendly travellers today, with each story interwoven together.

The film (or the book, I should say) is based on an actual double murder case that happened on the Isles of Shoals, off the coast of New Hampshire, in 1873. The introductory part of the film reveals us that a couple of female immigrants from Norway were killed, and a man called Lewis is arrested. But as the sole survivor and witness Maren (Sarah Polley, most unlucky girl in "GO") recounts her story to us, complicated things leading up to the fatal night slowly reveals unexpected side to us.

Meanwhile, the other story concerns the four members on board, crusing in a yacht off the coast of the Isles: photographer Jean (underrated Catherine McCormack, in "Braveheart" and "Spy Game"), her husband and celebrated poet Thomas (Sean Penn), his brother Rick (Josh Lucas), and Rick's new girlfriend Adeline (Elizabeth Hurley). Jean is assigned to take photos about the murder case in 1873, and she is gradully obcessed with investigating the truth behind the case. But as she gets closer to the facts, the relations between the four members on board stars to falter, opening both the channel for the undercurrent enmity, and the wounds that should have been healed long ago.

The double plot concept sounds good, but does not seem to be working well. It depends on your view, but I thought these too many details thrown in the film look so disjointed that the film fails to keep them tight, making the whole work look very confusing. The murder story is developed, generating our interest adequet for watching, thanks to Sarah Polley's convincing acting, but her character, with all credible complexity, suffers from so many flashbacks and story-within-story structure. It is a shame because she is really good, as is McCormack, whose character Jean, with her unconsciously sneaking loneliness, is phychologically (or supernaturally) connected with tormented Maren's life (so it is implied). With more stress on the aspect of the relation between them, the film could be more accessible and involving. Overall, acting is good, but, you know, when did Sean Penn provide us with bad acting?

Director Bigelow's trademake photography, making full use of light and darkness, is here again, and her cutting-edge cinematography that raised her past works one notch higher can be seen this time. However, I must say that her known weakness in handling the story also damages the film, as in the past. The last sequence about the storm coming to the yacht off the Isles (this "Perfect Storm"-like climax set in today corresponds with the re-enactment of deadly night 130 years ago) looks very contrived, inspite of the tactful editing.

Now, I said what I wanted to say. I also point out that this was produced by Studio Canal (France), and made before the Harrison Ford film "K-19" directed by Bigelow. I give three stars, but I must confess that I was disappointed after seeing this twice.

This is an adaptation of the exceptionally well-written book of the same name by Anita Shreve. The film, as does the book, tells two stories, each with its own voice, demanding to be heard. The stories run parallel to each other, and the film cuts back and forth between each one, a difficult thing to do successfully. The director, Karen Bigelow, handles the flashbacks with competent ease. One story takes place in the present, and the other takes place over a century ago. The film is not a faithful adaptation of the book, and the revisions somewhat undercut the tension in the present day story, weakening that portion of the film. Moreover, while the casting for the period segment is perfect, the casting of the present day story leaves much to be desired.

The film tells the present day story of Jean (Catherine McCormack), a news photographer who sets out on a large sailboat to a remote island off the coast of New Hampshire, accompanied by her Pulitzer prize winning writer/husband, Thomas (Sean Pen), her brother-in-law, Rich (Josh Lucas), and his sexy girl friend of several months, Adaline (Elizabeth Hurley). It turns out that Thomas and Adeline already knew each other, as Thomas had introduced her to his brother, a fact of which Jean had been previously unaware. It appears that relations may be strained on this voyage, as Adeline flirts outrageously with Thomas. Jean's present is haunted by passion, jealousy, and betrayal. She feels great angst, as she senses the attraction that seems to exist between her husband and Adeline.

The purpose of the visit to the island is to view the scene of a nineteenth century double murder that saw two Norwegian, immigrant women hacked to death, which murders were much ballyhooed at the time as the crime of the century. A third woman, Maren Hontvedt (Sara Polley), survived the carnage that took the lives of her sister and sister-in-law and lived to tell the tale. It seems that a former boarder returned to their homestead, while the husbands of two of the women were away, and attacked them. He was caught, charged, tried, convicted and, proclaiming his innocence to the end, executed for his crimes.

Jean later discovers an uncatalogued statement made by the lone surviving eyewitness, Maren Hontvedt, which recounts Maren's life and the events that led up to the carnage. It reveals what actually happened. The period segment reveals that while Maren's marriage is not a love match, she is, nonetheless, doing everything she can to make a home. When her relatives arrive from Norway, they revive past issues best left dormant. Jean begins to identify with Maren's struggles with love and marriage. Ultimately, It is through Maren's compelling story that Jean finds herself able to come to term with her own personal tragedy.

Alternating between Jean's unraveling present and the secrets of the past, the film provides an absorbing and suspenseful narrative, as it tries to tell the two stories. It is in the period piece that the film succeeds, however, painting a wonderful picture of what Maren's life was like over a century a go on that isolated island. Sarah Polley is terrific as the tragic Maren and the cinematography is magnificent. It is the period story, painting the picture of nineteenth century immigrant life, that carries the film, as it is that story that is the most compelling. The two juxtaposed dramas each come together, however, in a primal and tragic climax.

The present day story, unfortunately sinks under its own weight. Sean Penn in the role of Thomas gives a performance that makes the viewer want to slap him, so obnoxious and pretentious does he come across. He is all but laughable and so unattractive as to make one wonder what the gorgeous Adeline could ever see in him. Elizabeth Hurley is well cast as the slyly flirtatious Adeline. Josh Lucas is likable as Rich, Jean's good looking brother-in-law. Unfortunately, the anorexic looking Catherine McCormack is also not particularly likable as Jean. One begins to think that she and Thomas deserve each other. Moreover, the viewer cares little about what happens to either one of them, so unlikable are they.

The present day story deserves about two stars, while the period segment deserves at least a four, so I am rating this film with three stars. Read the book; then, watch the movie.

The 19th century story is beautifully filmed and acted, and deserves 5 stars on its own merits. Sarah Polley in particular does a terrific job as the Norwegian immigrant incestuous lesbian ax-murderer. The location filming on the Isles of Shoals was spectacular.

The 20th century story is visually beautiful, with lots of sun, skin, and sailboats, but it wasn't filmed at the Isles of Shoals - people don't go swimming out there without a wet suit, even in the summertime. It's the North Atlantic, remember?

The acting is spotty and the plot is incoherent. The storm episode does not hang together. Why no life vests for the men? Why no safety lines? Why does Hurley climb out of the hatch in the middle of a storm - is she psychotic?

Sean Penn plays Sean Penn very well, but he is not credible as the anguished poet. Elizabeth Hurley is absolutely delicious to look at, which alone may provide sufficient motivation for some to see this movie. Katherine McCormack does neurosis reasonably well.

It's an interesting film, worth seeing for the 19th century murder-drama and for the view of Hurley's nude torso.

Katherine Bigelow's "The Weight of Water," is a compelling story unraveled through seemingly parallel tales, one in the present, the other set in 1873 on an off-shore New England Island. The 1873 tale is intriguing and has all the elements of a fine murder-mystery. The thing that stops this film from raising above the merely good and talented fray is that the two tales are unbalanced. Though the modern day tale of Sean Pean as a writer, his wife as a photojournalist, Josh Lucas as Penn's brother, and a deliciously played coy Elizabeth Hurley as Lucas' girlfriend and a literary groupie to Penn makes for complicated interactions played interestingly by a fine cast, it simply does not live up to the history behind the mystery.

The two tales are attempted to be interwoven but aren't connected skillfully like similar cinematic anachronistic parallel tales like "The Hours." Don't miss this as a rental; you will be captivated, intrigued, frightened, but its not one to own unless you are a big fan of Penn or Hurley. The water indeed gets weighty but it's only half deep.
--MMW

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. **

THE WEIGHT OF WATER is one of those movies using parallel story lines, hopefully in an attempt to give its audience a reason for the comparative storylines. This movie, however, fails to really do that. The murder mystery set in 1870s New Hampshire is riveting, and Sarah Polley is marvelous as young Maren, the woman caught up in a double murder. Ciaran Hinds is also very good as the accused boarder who is sentenced to death for the crimes. Unfortunately, the present day storyline is so muddled and weakly performed that we never fully understand how the two storylines could ever possibly tie together. Sean Penn gives one of his worst performances in this film, having no energy or conviction in his role; Elizabeth Hurley tries to look sexy, and succeeds, but who is this woman? Catherine McCormack doesn't help matters, with her self-absorbent performance, and only Josh Lucas in a throwaway role as Penn's brother redeems himself. If the whole movie had been as engrossing as the period piece, it would have been a real winner. As it is, though, it's merely a showcase for Sarah Polley.

If I hadn't already read the novel by Anita Shreve upon which this film is based, I think I would have found the switching back and forth from the turn of the century to the present offsetting. As I anticipated the older story and the parallel emotions its discovery brings to the surface in the modern story, I found Bigelow's technique sufficiently expert to convey the story's message and tone.

As in the book, Jean, a photojournalist is married to Thomas an award winning poet. Jean has been assigned the task of photographing the environs of the isolated islands off the coast of Maine and New Hamphire, where two horrific murders occurred over a century before. As she, Thomas, her brother-in-law and her brother-in-law's too attractive girlfriend, Adaline, sail along the treacherous coastline, the audience infers by the foursome's moody dialogue and the flirtatious yet melancholy interplay between Thomas and Adaline---punctuated with plenty of ice clinking in drinks--- that Jean and Thomas's marriage is lacking in some arena that is never quite explored.
The absence in the film of Thomas and Jean's daughter, Billie removes a dimension to the plot which would have added irony to the overall outcome---although the movie works well enough without Billie's presence.

Jean, intent on the task of photographing the island locale where the murders occurred, becomes obsessed when she discovers a diary written by the murders only witness---a young Norwegian immigrant named Marin. As Jean reads the document, and it plays out for us in multiple visits to the past, we sense a similiarity between the yearning of both characters, past and present. The movie ends with the same cataclysmic happening that occurs in the book with one very relevant difference and twist of tragedy.

I didn't like Sean Penn as Thomas; I envisioned Thomas as a more economic human being who uses poetry to express what he ordinarily could never convey without breaking. Sean is too large a persona to get across that still-waters-run-deep quality I believe Thomas possessed in the novel. McCormack portrays an edgier Jean---more frazzled with a cigarette smoking intensity that was unfortunately not softened by the presence of the child. Hurley too overtly flirtatious---Adaline of the novel was less conscious of her beauty and its ability to seduce--it was more second nature rather than worked. Sarah Polley undoubtably gets my vote for best player---she emotes without speech--her loneliness is as evident as the lone house against the backdrop of the crashing waves---far from civilization and any real human warmth.

Watching this film will certainly provoke some conversational aftermath---and for this I recommend it--even if the conversation that ensues only compares the film with the book.

A complex drama in two movements: this was a worth adaptation of Anita Shreve bestseller artistically directed for Kathryn Bigelow whose style camera work reminds us to the Chabrol of the seventies , (The butcher)and Antonioni (L eclisse) .
The story is told in parallel times , when two modern couples decide to go to New Hampshire and visit the stage where two brutal murderers were commited 125 years ago , in which an innocent man is declared guilty and punished with death .
The slow rhtym is revealed with nuance and psichological mood , the defiant glances , the sensuality and the lack of inspiration of William Burroughs (Sean Penn) . Precisely in contrast with absence of creative fire , his husband seeks the clues far beyond the official story .
She will be rebuilding this macabre and mysterious puzzle , involved in a complex web of silents , incest and madness .
In both narrative lines the tension grows , and these stories admirably never intersect but they are edited perfectly with extraordinary and dramatic links .
All the characters have something to hide , the loneliness and hopeless are just behind the door , the poetry spills through the plot ; and the beating mistery slowly appears in front of the viewer with its merciless crudeness .
Sarah Polley stole the show with her complex acting . She is an overwhelming young actress and is a hopeful promise in this craft , together with Naomi Watts .
Certainly there is an undeniable european influence in its descriptive and paced flow . The corporal and visual languages are fundamental in this superb work .
Watch that film . Bigelow reveals as a great promise director with this work.

This film tells two stories. The first, a murder mystery occurring in what appears to be 19th century New England in an immigrant community. The second, the story of two couples - brothers played by Sean Penn and Josh Lucas with, respectively wife (Catherine McCormack) and girlfriend (Elizabeth Hurley) - on a short holiday somewhat casually investigating the matter as they sail around the locale. The timelines are well demarcated cinematically through color and sound (with a couple of odd cuts), and this film will appeal to fans of the neo-noir/mystery genre, as well as folks who like to watch Elizabeth Hurley walk around barely clad. There are some interesting relationships between the past and present storylines, well-filmed parallel stormy crescendos, and some worthy dialogue (such as the extended conversation between McCormake and Hurley about Penn's character).

I liked Mccormack as Penn's troubled photographer wife. She and Ciaran Hinds as the creepy accused murderer in the flashbacks were the bright spots in this film for me. Sarah Polley put in a typically good effort as a gray, twisted, perpetually disappointed young bride in a hard new world. Hurley was hired to ooze naughtiness in this film, and that's what she did by sucking and nibbling on every small object at hand and stroking herself so much that I'd have expected a related rash or friction burn. Was Penn's character an ogling, self-obsessed, unlikeable poet or a grand, tortured poet-soul? "Talent excuses cruelty." Josh Lucas just sort of handsomely floated around the periphery of the troubled threesome for most of the film, and Vinissa Shaw floated through the middle of the earlier timeline as Polley's naive and very sweet sister-in-law.

In the end, there were lots of moments that I liked, but the whole thing left me with a few unscratched itches and that feeling that, like a few of the characters, I'd been quickly diddled and then left alone.