Dark Water

The supernatural drama Dark Water is, from one angle, a refreshing return to a ghost story with a human story at the centre, reminiscent of classics like Robert Wise’s The Haunting and Jack Clayton’s The Innocents. However, the supernatural elements don’t entirely gel, surprise, or scare as they should, and so Dark Water stays frustratingly out of reach of excellence.

Built on credible performances and characters, the film is really about a single woman struggling to survive, hang on to her child, and love her daughter in a way that she herself was never loved. Recent divorcee Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly) finds an apartment for herself and daughter Cecilia (Ariel Gade) in an old, foreboding building complex on Roosevelt Island in NYC. Desperate to prove her worth as a mother and provider so she can maintain custody of Cecilia, she takes a job that is beneath her talents as a copyeditor and quickly signs the papers for the dingy but affordably-priced apartment. In Polanski-esqe fashion, the building boasts a cast of vaguely threatening characters: specious building manager Mr. Murray (John C. Reilly); monosyllabic, icy caretaker Veeck (Pete Postlethwaite); and two sexually-menacing youths. Joining these troubling forces circling Dahlia is her ex-husband Kyle (Dougray Scott), who threatens to tear Cecilia away from her, and her persistent memories of abandonment and callousness by her mother.

In true haunted-house genre fashion, odd events begin to happen. There are sounds of a small child running around in the empty apartment above. The elevator has a mind of its own and seemingly wants to take Dahlia to the tenth floor, where the abandoned apartment resides. Water begins leaking through the ceiling of the apartment, and the apartment above begins to flood with dark water. And Cecilia acquires an imaginary friend, one that doesn’t like being ignored.

A subtle underlying tension results from this set-up. Dahlia, financially struggling, emotionally damaged and in the midst of a custody battle, must appear entirely capable of raising her daughter. Kyle and his lawyer would seize on any hint of instability or hysteria, and so when the unexplained events begin to affect Dahlia, the stakes for her are raised considerably and the underlying suspense of the story ratchets up. Further beneath this in the narrative are the parallel threads of two individuals lacking and yearning for a motherly bond – one from beyond the grave.

The emotional depth of Dark Water raise it far above conventional horror films, but unfortunately the ghost story within the piece doesn’t ultimately deliver. The solution to the mystery at the heart of the haunting is far too obvious and is delivered too quickly towards the end of the film. This is one film that deserves to be expanded with more ghostly build up, though the coda to the story is both creepy and moving. Director Walter Salles invests the drama with conviction, and the film is beautifully photographed, but he mishandles the supernatural aspects. In the end, Dark Water just isn’t scary enough and is too thinly plotted, which is unfortunate because, given the obvious intelligence of the film, some genuine chills and a meatier plot would have pushed it into classic territory.

As it is, Dark Water is worth watching for its characters and performances, and is a rare example of an intelligent film of the supernatural.

---
Directed by Walter Salles

Written by Rafael Yglesias, based on the novel by Kôji Suzuki and the screenplay by Hideo Nakata and Takashige Ichise

Starring:
Jennifer Connelly....Dahlia
John C. Reilly....Mr. Murray
Tim Roth....Jeff Platzer
Dougray Scott....Kyle
Pete Postlethwaite....Veeck
Camryn Manheim....Teacher
Ariel Gade....Cecilia