Movie Review: Dark Water

I watched the unrated edition of "Dark Water" on DVD and much to my disappointment it wasn't that good. Perhaps I should have had expected that since "The Grudge", which was written and produced by the same people of "Dark Water", sucked. It's basically a ghost story that centers on Dahlia Williams (Jennifer Connelly) as a struggling divorced mother trying to start a new life with her daughter, Ceci (Ariel Gade) by moving into a rather run-down apartment building on Roosevelt Island which she could afford. As soon as they move into 9F, Ceci befriends with an imaginary friend and Dahlia is on the verge of a major break down as she is being haunted by leaking ceilings and whispers, all coming from 10F, the apartment above them.

After the first 10 or 15 minutes, I told myself that it was a very slow introduction and the pace of slowness just kept going much to my irritation. The movie should have been directed by someone else other than Walter Salles because I found it to be overly glum and depressing. Too much rain and water, too much grey, brown, and green, and too much run-down feelings. To top it off, the mother was depressed! I have never been impressed with Jennifer Connelly, with the exception of her role in "Labyrinth". Ariel Gade did very well in the movie, that I have to admit. She could act and I just simply thought she was cute. John C. Reilly made his character, Mr. Murray who was the manager of the apartment building, a dislikable one and at the same time, strangely, made me dislike him as an actor. Tim Roth, who played Jeff Platzer, Dahlia's lawyer, didn't do much in the film that he didn't really shine. Hardly a scary film. I give this film a D.