The Weight of Water (2000)
Average Rating: 5.1/10
Reviews Counted: 64
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 42
The story is too muddled to build any interest.
Average Rating: 5.2/10
Critic Reviews: 24
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 15
The story is too muddled to build any interest.
liked it
Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 4,395
My Rating
Movie Info
A woman studying a crime of the past finds her own life becoming a morass of suspicion and deceit in this drama based on the novel by Anita Shreve. Jean Janes (Catherine McCormack) is a photographer working on a project that would document surviving evidence of a multiple murder that occurred a hundred years ago -- when a man named Louis Wagner (Ciaran Hinds) brutally killed two immigrant women from Norway with an axe, only to discover a third, Maren Hontvedt (Sarah Polley), witnessed the mayhem
Cast
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Catherine McCormack
Jean Janes -
Sarah Polley
Maren Hontvedt -
Sean Penn
Thomas Janes -
Josh Lucas
Rich Janes -
Elizabeth Hurley
Adaline Gunne -
Ciarán Hinds
Louis Wagner -
Ulrich Thomsen
John Hontvedt -
Anders W. Berthelsen
Evan Christenson -
Katrin Cartlidge
Karen Christenson -
Vinessa Shaw
Anethe Christenson
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All Critics (71) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (42) | DVD (10)
The boating scenes have a languid yet charged sexuality, and the performances remain vibrant and rock-solid to the end.
Top CriticArtistically speaking, Bigelow's drama may be her most ambitous and personal film to date, a multi-layered (period and contemporary) psychological thriller that borrows from Bergman's masterpiece Persona; commercially, however, it's problematic.
The jarring jumps between disconnected stories and watered-down sensationalism make for a soggy experience.
The Weight of Water uses water as a metaphor for subconscious desire, but this leaky script barely stays afloat.
There are a few wrong notes, and the ending is too enigmatic for its own good, but for a studio production the film is uncommonly intelligent and uncompromising.
Shreve's graceful dual narrative gets clunky on the screen, and we keep getting torn away from the compelling historical tale to a less-compelling soap opera.
Nem as ótimas performances de Sarah Polley e Sean Penn conseguem conferir energia a este filme, cujas histórias desenvolvidas paralelamente se anulam de forma implacável.
The film might appeal to those who've already read the book, but it's unlikely those who haven't will find much of anything to enjoy here.
It doesn't surprise me that this film sat for two years in storage before released, as the final version appeared clunky.
Bigelow offers some flashy twists and turns that occasionally fortify this turgid fable. But for the most part, The Weight of Water comes off as a two-way time-switching myopic mystery that stalls in its lackluster gear of emotional blandness.
Despite an impressive roster of stars and direction from Kathryn Bigelow, The Weight of Water is oppressively heavy.
The superior plotline isn't quite enough to drag along the dead (water) weight of the other.
Elegantly crafted but emotionally cold, a puzzle whose intricate construction one can admire but is difficult to connect with on any deeper level.
[Two] fairly dull -- contrasting and interlocking stories about miserable Scandinavian settlers in 18th-century Canada, and yuppie sailboaters in the here and now.
Audience Reviews for The Weight of Water
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