The Weight of Water (film)

The Weight of Water is a 2000 French-American mystery thriller film based on Anita Shreve's 1997 novel The Weight of Water. 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.

The Weight of Water
Theatrical release poster
Directed byKathryn Bigelow
Produced byA. Kitman Ho
Sigurjón Sighvatsson
Janet Yang
Screenplay byAlice Arlen
Christopher Kyle
Based onThe Weight of Water
by Anita Shreve
StarringElizabeth Hurley
Catherine McCormack
Sean Penn
Sarah Polley
Music byDavid Hirschfelder
CinematographyAdrian Biddle
Production
company
Distributed byLions Gate Films
Release date
  • 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
CountryFrance
United States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$16 million
Box office$321,279[1]

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

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 35% based on reviews from 65 critics. The site's critical summary reads, "The story is too muddled to build any interest".[3] On Metacritic the film has a score of 45% based on reviews from 22 critics.[4]

Critics felt 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."[5] Holden felt the two stories "never mesh".[5]

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. "The Weight of Water". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved June 10, 2020.
  4. "The Weight of Water". Metacritic. Retrieved June 10, 2020.
  5. 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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