The Weight of Water

With water, slow pensive music with saxophones and Sean Penn, this excellently atmospheric film is a little bit like Scott’s White Squall. But the script is completely different: through a framework story set in the present day (two couples on a yacht), it tells a different relationship story about murders that took place in the past (a family tragedy in a house on a small island). Paradoxically, though, we are more interested in the story taking place in the present day (thanks to the excellent casting and the completely believable sparks between the characters) than in learning the identity of the murderer from the other story (uninteresting, TV-like narrative style). The stories are linked in the movie’s climax, but they prove to be not very compatible (you feel that what you’re watching is supposed to be deep but it simply isn’t). The film is not very well known and not attractive to the masses, as the two types of environments in which the stories take place mean two very different target audiences. P.S. Liz Hurley is fu*king irresistible. (29/06/2009)

A psychological thriller that would work much better if it were set exclusively in the present and the screenwriter didn't try to forcefully connect two different stories that also take place a hundred years apart. The older part focuses on a crime of passion that can only have two possible culprits, and given that the viewer somewhat automatically calculates the "surprising" twist in the development of the process, logically only one person can be the perpetrator. This means that the only puzzle becomes his motivation. I must admit that I haven't waited for the resolution and final scene as much as in this case for a long time. The present-day story suffers from constant flashbacks to the distant past, effectively dulling its dramatic potential. Kathryn Bigelow directs reliably, but the film lacks spark, making it essentially a missed opportunity for me. Overall impression: 45%. (08/10/2010)

Kathryn Bigelow confirms quite radically that sophisticated melodramas are not really her thing, and I hope next time she sticks to the action genre, which suits her splendidly. The theme of The Weight of Water is more suitable for Jane Campion or Alejandro González Iñárritu. The cast is brilliant, but the alternative story from the 19th century is boring, and when it all ends, you sort of realise that this film would have worked much better as a pure conversational drama set in the present. (26/12/2009)