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Dark Water

2005, Movie, PG-13, 105 mins

Dark Water: Review

DARK WATER
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Like Roman Polanski, who arrived in Hollywood with a bang and a scream when he made ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968), Brazilian art-house favorite Walter Salles' English-language debut is a horror movie, and a remake of RING director Hideo Nakata's hugely successful DARK WATER (2003), no less. True to form, Salles' version is an intelligent, brooding ghost story brimming with atmosphere, emotions and, above all else, water, but it's disappointingly short on scares. Newly single mom Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly), who's just separated from her husband, Kyle (Dougray Scott), is fighting for custody of their 6-year-old, Ceci (extraordinary newcomer Ariel Gade). Kyle says Dahlia's unstable; she insists Kyle is an indifferent father who doesn't remember his own daughter's birthday. Dahlia has had her share of mental illness, no doubt the result of a miserable childhood spent with a cruel, unloving mother (Elina Lowensohn), but she's determined to do the best she can. Her search for a new apartment ends on New York City's Roosevelt Island, a thin slip of land surrounded by the murky waters of the East River, but despite sleazy management agent Mr. Murray's (John C. Reilly) bogus enthusiasm, the building is a horror. The threatening hallways are stained the color of mildew, the elevator seems to have a mind of its own and the superintendent (Pete Postlethwaite) is a menacing creep. Its asset is affordability, but no sooner are mother and daughter settled in their grim new home than the problems start. Ceci's new teacher (Camryn Manheim) warns Dahlia that her daughter's infatuation with an imaginary friend she calls "Natasha" might be the sign of something serious. An otherwise harmless red backpack keeps reappearing with sinister regularity. And the ugly water stain over Ceci's bed begins to drip a vile brown liquid, even though Murray swears the previous tenants, a Russian couple with a young daughter, moved out months ago. But if it's empty, why does Dahlia hear a child's footsteps running across the floor? Screenwriter Rafael Yglesias sticks close to Nakata's film which, like any good ghost story, is deeply rooted in restless wrongs that haunt both the spirit world and our bruised psyches — mysterious realms that often turn out to be the same place. Connelly is again well cast as a woman on the verge of something, but Salles and Yglesias aren't horror filmmakers by nature. They know all about emotional resonance — the real key to the success of "J-horror" — but don't quite know how to get pulses racing. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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