The Weight of Water (film)

The Weight of Water

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
Produced by A. Kitman Ho
Sigurjón Sighvatsson
Janet Yang
Screenplay by Alice Arlen
Christopher Kyle
Based on The Weight of Water
by Anita Shreve
Starring Elizabeth Hurley
Catherine McCormack
Sean Penn
Sarah Polley
Music by David Hirschfelder
Cinematography Adrian Biddle
Production
company
Distributed by Lions Gate Films
Release dates
  • September 9, 2000 (2000-09-09) (TIFF)
  • July 31, 2002 (2002-07-31) (France)
  • November 1, 2002 (2002-11-01) (US)
Running time
 113 minutes
Country France
United States
Language English
Budget $16 million
Box office $321,279[1]

The Weight of Water is a 2000 French-American mystery thriller film based on Anita Shreve's 1997 novel of the same name. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, the film stars Elizabeth Hurley, Catherine McCormack, Sean Penn, and Sarah Polley. The film was shot in Nova Scotia.[2] Although it premiered at the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival, it was not released in the United States until November 1, 2002.

Plot

Newspaper photographer Jean Janes travels to the Isles of Shoals off the New Hampshire coast with her husband Thomas, an award-winning poet, his brother Rich, and Rich's girlfriend Adaline. She is researching the murders of two immigrant women in the same area in 1873, Karen Christensen and Anethe Christensen. In a twist of fate, Jean discovers archived papers that appear to give an account of the murders. According to the papers, a third woman, a Norwegian immigrant named Maren Hontvedt, survived the attack, which was allegedly done by Louis Wagner, who had once tried to seduce her.

The plot unfolds the narrative of the papers and Hontvedt's testimony against Wagner that gets him hanged, even though she was the murderer, as Jean surmises. Jean privately struggles with jealousy as Adaline openly flirts with Thomas, who openly appreciates Adaline's topless beauty, along with her interest in his work. The movie ends with Hontvedt trying to confess before he is hanged, in vain, as the modern-day characters get caught in a severe storm, where reality and fantasy collide.

Cast

Reception

The film received mixed reviews, with many feeling that Bigelow had not achieved as much weight with the fictional story of the present against her portrayal of the events of the past. Stephen Holden of The New York Times said, "There is so much to admire in The Weight of Water, Kathryn Bigelow's churning screen adaptation of a novel by Anita Shreve, that when the movie finally collapses on itself late in the game, it leaves you in the frustrating position of having to pick up its scattered pieces and assemble them as best you can."[3] Holden felt the two stories "never mesh".[3]

Accolades

References

  1. ↑ "The Weight of Water (2000) - International Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database. November 22, 2002. Retrieved November 8, 2014.
  2. ↑ Tribute.ca
  3. 1 2 STEPHEN HOLDEN, "FILM REVIEW; Women at the Edge, a Century Apart", New York Times, 1 November 2002, accessed 20 August 2012
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