Dark Water (2005)

Some mysteries were never meant to be solved.

Starring: Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly, Tim Roth, Dougray Scott, Pete Postlethwaite, Camryn Manheim, Ariel Gade, Perla Haney-Jardine, Debra Monk, Linda Emond, Bill Buell, J.R. Horne, Elina Lowensohn

Director: Walter Salles

Running Time: 105 minutes

US MPAA rating: PG-13
UK BBFC rating: 15
Drama, Horror, Thriller

Haunted by memories of being abandoned as a child by her alcoholic mother, and more recently abandoned for another woman by her husband Kyle (Dougray Scott), fragile, pill-popping Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly) moves with her young daughter Ceci (Ariel Gade) into a dilapidated tenement block on New York's Roosevelt Island. Dahlia already feels hemmed in by her vicious custody battle with Kyle, but things get worse as a child's footsteps are heard from the empty floor above, damp patches and leaks start appearing in the apartment, and Ceci grows increasingly obsessed with an imaginary friend named Natasha. Dahlia begins to wonder if her mind is playing tricks on her - but there is definitely something in the water, and the building's secrets, so far emerging only in a trickle, are soon to come pouring out in a deluge that threatens to overwhelm mother and daughter alike.

Determined not to follow in her mother's abusive footsteps, Dahlia finds herself doomed to repeat the past, while another lost soul with a similar history treads the hallways in search of a parental love that had never previously been given - and as these parallel storylines wash up against each other, causing the usual flow of time, space and identity to ripple and double back, the result is déjà vu, that uncanny sense of having already seen something before, which has always been an essential ingredient in tales of the supernatural, and which infects 'Dark Water' like black dye in liquid.

The effect of déjà vu is all the stronger, however, because 'Dark Water' is in fact a remake of a Japanese film, refashioning for western eyes what has already been seen in Hideo Nakata's

It's Got: A plot awash with eerie ambiguity; dripping, atmospheric sets that will make you wish you had brought a towel along to the cinema; fine acting; and a melancholic soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti.

It Needs:

to be more original - the near flawlessness of Hideo Nakata's 'Honogurai mizu no soko kara' makes 'Dark Water' seem a somewhat redundant (if impressive) project; and, at the risk of contradiction,
to stick closer to the ending of Nakata's original, which is to my mind much more understated and fluid - and far more haunting.

Alternatives: Honogurai mizu no soko kara, 'The Tenant', The Ring Two, The Forgotten, Hide and Seek, 'Repulsion'

Summary: This psychological chiller drips with atmosphere, but compared to the Japanese original its ending is something of a damp squib. Overall Score: 7 out of 10

Review Date: 12th July 2005