July 8, 2005

This particular DARK WATER is the Hollywood/English-language remake of the 2002 J-horror movie from THE RING director Hideo Nakata (and based on a short story by the same author, Koji Suzuki). In 2005 I had the earlier movie fresh on my mind to compare this to, but now I came to it fresh, because I barely remember either of them. In fact I got this mixed up with DREAM HOUSE and kept expecting Daniel Craig to show up.

I did remember that it stars Jennifer Connelly (DARK CITY) and is gloomy and rainy. Connelly plays Dahlia Williams, who grew up in Seattle but the weather has apparently followed her into her adult life in New York City. She’s in the middle of a not-very-friendly custody battle with ex-husband Kyle (Dougray Scott, the guy who didn’t play Wolverine because MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2 went over schedule) who wants her to stay close to his apartment in Jersey City, but she finds a place on Roosevelt Island. She’s not happy about it either but it’s cheap and near what she says is a good elementary school for their daughter Ceci (Ariel Gade, later in ALIENS VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM).

This is a building-based movie like ROSEMARY’S BABY or SINGLE WHITE FEMALE, so sort of the center of the story is the long sequence where they come to be shown the apartment by property manager Mr. Murray (John C. Reilly, CRIMINAL). The place is almost to the top, so he calls it “the lower penthouse,” among other bullshit. It’s kind of a shithole, but he says it will be repainted, etc.

During the tour Ceci is vocally against moving in, and Mr. Murray keeps trying to sell it to her too. He keeps calling her by her name, or sweetie or honey, which very quickly shifts from kind of nice to super uncomfortable.

It was kind of brilliant to cast somebody so lovable as this guy who has to be completely full of shit to do his job. When he tells her about its history and how it was made in a brutalist style he sounds like he might genuinely be a little nerdy, but mostly he’s putting on a very obvious act, talking up a “living room slash bedroom” as a “dual-use room” or knocking on the shower door to prove that it’s safe and won’t break.

He calls this “a million dollar view for $900 a month”:

It’s a big building that we rarely see anybody in except for Mr. Veeck, “the super for building C.” He’s played by the great Pete Postlethwaite (ALIEN 3) so you can imagine the grouchy face he has on most of the time. He mostly sits in a small booth and watches the elevator security camera. Postlethwaite of course can convey with expression alone “I know about some ghosty shit going on here but I’m not gonna say anything.”

Mr. Veeck is grumpy and is keeping some terrible secrets, but I feel for him as Mr. Murray repeatedly throws him under the bus for things like the door to the roof somehow getting unlocked (so Ceci wandered onto it) or repairing a leak in Dahlia’s ceiling that he says isn’t part of his job. It is, of course, a supernatural wet spot but he knocks through it with a hammer and it keeps coming back.

This is a ghost movie so there are various mysterious events that unfold slowly, centered around the vacant apartment above and its former residents. The elevator stops and gives people weird feelings. Dahlia sees flashes of the upstairs apartment’s inhabitants and her own childhood traumas. Ceci’s teacher (Camryn Manheim, MERCURY RISING) reports that the kid keeps talking to an imaginary friend rather than the other kids in class – you know that’s trouble. Possibly related to the mysterious Hello Kitty bag that Dahlia finds and wants to keep.

Oh, and of course, the dark water – black stuff coming out of the sinks, the toilet, the leak in the ceiling. And eventually we’re gonna get some flooding. Daniel Craig does not show up, but Tim Roth (THE MUSKETEER) does as a lawyer Dahlia eventually hires. That happens surprisingly late in the movie and I feel like the stature of the actor suggests a more important character than he ends up being. Strange and unusual. But ghost movies themselves should be strange and unusual.

For me the most effective part besides the non-sinister creep factor of Mr. Murray’s constant nervous desperation is the not-very-Hollywood ending. SPOILER. Dahlia actually dies, which is shocking, but what really makes it work is the epilogue where Kyle is now Ceci’s guardian and solemnly brings her to the apartment to get her things. This guy is an asshole, he did not deserve custody and he seems like maybe he knows he’s in over his head now but he’s the best she has and he’s making an effort. It’s an interesting human situation in the background of the resolution of a ghost story.

I should mention the contributions of composer Angelo Badalamenti (GORDON’S WAR, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS, WILD AT HEART), cinematographer Affonso Beato (THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET, PRONTO, GHOST WORLD) and production designer Thérèse DePrez (THE DOOM GENERATION, SUMMER OF SAM). I like the oppressively overcast and damp feel of this whole movie, and Connelly is as great as you’d expect, but at least on this viewing it didn’t pull me in deep enough to really work on me. But it’s well made. Maybe I would’ve done better watching it in the fall.

What did really creep me out about it was noticing the parallels to a half-remembered true story I read about in the years since. In 2013 a Canadian tourist disappeared from a historic hotel in L.A. Police released footage from an elevator security camera where she seemed to be acting strangely. Weeks after she was last seen alive a maintenance man investigating complaints of flooding and low water pressure found her body in a water tank on the roof. She had a history of mental health episodes, and her death was ruled an accidental drowning, but of course the many baffling parts of the story have led to continued speculation and theorizing.

Apparently the weird similarities to DARK WATER were widely discussed at the time, but I had forgotten about that. There have also been many TV episodes and things influenced by the weird circumstances of the case. All of these variations/coincidences sort of have the feel of an urban legend or a “scary story to tell in the dark” anyway.

I did not get a chance to rewatch the original version, but from reading synopses it seems like the remake is fairly faithful (but without the epilogue taking place ten years later).

The screenwriter of the remake is Rafael Yglesias, a novelist who became a screenwriter when Peter Weir made his book Fearless into a movie (he also did DEATH AND THE MAIDEN, LES MISERABLES [1998] and FROM HELL). These days he’s also known as the father of (notorious in my social media feeds) political blogger Matthew Yglesias.

This is the first (and so far last) Hollywood film directed by Walter Salles, Brazilian helmer of acclaimed films including CENTRAL STATION (1998) and THE MOTORCYCLE DIARES (2004) as well as producer of CITY OF GOD (2002). He followed this with contributions to two French anthologies (PARIS, JE T’AIME and TO EACH HIS OWN CINEMA) before returning to Brazil for LINHA DE PASSE (2008). More recently his 2024 film I’M STILL HERE won many awards around the world – here it won Best International Feature and was nominated for best picture and actress. I highly recommend it because/though it hits very hard as a parallel to what we’re going through/about to go through in the United States.

DARK WATER was not a bad detour for him to take, but I’m glad he got back to the politically charged dramas in his homeland.

Most dated choice:

The font? Everything else is pretty timeless I think.

P.S. I recognized the young Dahlia seen very briefly in the opening as Bebe from KILL BILL VOLUME 2 (Perla Haney-Jardine).