The Weight of Water (2000)
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34% of critics liked it
(64 reviews) -
38% of users liked it
(4,395 ratings)
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… More 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 and survived to identify him in court. Jean travels to the small New Hampshire coastal town where the killings occurred with her husband Thomas (Sean Penn), an award-winning poet; his brother Rich (Josh Lucas); and Rich's girlfriend Adaline (Elizabeth Hurley). As Jean digs deeper into the troubling facts of the long-ago murder, as well as the tangential details of Maren Honvedt's unhappy marriage to John Hontvedt (Ulrich Thomsen) and her incestuous affair with her brother Evan (Anders W. Berthelsen), Jean begins to believe that she has a crisis of her own to contend with: she is convinced Thomas is having an affair with Adaline. The Weight of Water also features Katrin Cartlidge as Maren's sister Karen and Vinessa Shaw as her sister-in-law Anethe. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Directed By
- Kathryn Bigelow
- Written By
- Alice Arlen, Christopher Kyle
- Genres
- Mystery & Suspense, Drama
R,
- In Theaters
- Jul 6, 2001 Wide
- On DVD
- Mar 4, 2003
- Studio
- Lions Gate Releasing
Critic Reviews
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Michael Sragow, New Yorker
The boating scenes have a languid yet charged sexuality, and the performances remain vibrant and rock-solid to the end.
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Emanuel Levy, Variety
Artistically 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.
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Gary Dowell, Dallas Morning News
The jarring jumps between disconnected stories and watered-down sensationalism make for a soggy experience.
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Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer
The Weight of Water uses water as a metaphor for subconscious desire, but this leaky script barely stays afloat.
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Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle
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.
See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)
Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)
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Cast
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Catherine McCormack
as Jean Janes
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Sarah Polley
as Maren Hontvedt
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Sean Penn
as Thomas Janes
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Josh Lucas
as Rich Janes
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Elizabeth Hurley
as Adaline Gunne
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Ciarán Hinds
as Louis Wagner
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Ulrich Thomsen
as John Hontvedt
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Anders W. Berthelsen
as Evan Christenson
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Katrin Cartlidge
as Karen Christenson
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Vinessa Shaw
as Anethe Christenson
