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The Weight of Water
TIFF [2000]
(USA/FRANCE 2000)110 minutes
Cast: Sean Penn, Elizabeth Hurley, Catherine McCormack, Sarah Polley, Josh Lucas
Written by Alice Arlen and Christopher Kyle
Based on the novel by Anita Shreve
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
The Story
Photojournalist Jean Janes, accompanied by her novelist husband Thomas, her brother-in-law Rich and Rich's new girlfriend Adaline, journeys by yacht to Smuttynose, off the coast of New Hampshire, to photograph the site of a sensational axe murder that occurred a century earlier in which two women were killed. Having unearthed an account of the murders by an eyewitness, Jane learns of the specifics leading up to the deaths: in 1873, newlywed Maren Hontvedt emigrates from Norway with husband John and becomes confined to a dutiful solitary life. Within months, Maren's sister, brother, and sister-in-law join them on the island, and a mysterious lodger moves in. Jean becomes engrossed in the case and jealous of Adaline's obvious erotic allure to Thomas, and in parallel stories, both women's respective jealousies and tension explode into violence against the backdrop of a raging Atlantic Ocean.ROBERT L'S REVIEW
Kathryn Bigelow, the talented director of such undervalued gems as "Strange Days", "Blue Steel", and "Near Dark" (erroneously introduced as "the director of the seminal teen classic "After Dark"), decided to abandon her gifts in the action/noir genre for "serious" fare of the worst kind. "The Weight Of Water" is another handsomely-shot, pretentious mess, shamelessly aiming for Oscar® and critical kudos while forgetting to tell a compelling story. At least the similarly murky "Time and Tide" had gunplay--this one has moody novelist Sean Penn quoting T.S. Eliot to take his mind off the fact that a bikini-clad Liz Hurley is sucking on an ice cube suggestively. Meanwhile, in the backstory (the entire film IS backstory!), Sarah Polley is stuck in a dreary Maritime marriage that results in several bodies and an "unsolved mystery" that's really not all that mysterious (although apparently based on an actual double-murder on the Isles of Shoals in 1873).
Somehow, the viewer is supposed to draw parallels between Maren's repressed life in an arranged marriage, and Jean's snippy relationship with philandering Thomas in present day. Granted, I'm not a woman, but I found it hard to equate living a life as a domestic slave in a cramped seaside dump with that of travelling to exotic locations for a living, while enduring tiresome literary quotes from a hack with a wandering eye. When the climax turned into a series of crosscuts between a gothic Lizzie Borden riff and a remake of "The Perfect Storm", I relented to the weight of the preposterousness of this film and counted the looong minutes until the end credits.
Talk Back
Sean Penn, in town for the TIFF, refused to do any local publicity for "Weight Of Water", and after watching his phoned-in performance, it's not hard to understand why--I suspect we won't be seeing clips from this one when he's up for a royal rump-kissing on "Inside The Actors' Studio". Catherine McCormack, so memorable in "Shadow Of The Vampire", does little here but fret and frown. Elizabeth Hurley--well, she sure looks great undressed (don't hold your breath for any "Weight Of Water" McFarlane Toys action figures). The best turn comes from the always-reliable Canadian actress Sarah Polley, whose haunted features illuminate tense, eerie scenes that play like they're from another film entirely, and come to think of it, aren't they?
Polley and gorgeous Halifax locations aside, "The Weight Of Water" is strictly the stuff of small screen "Oprah's Book Club" adaptations and likely won't be remembered at Oscar®-or-any-other time.
Talk Back
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