The Weight of Water (2006)
Starring:  Sean Penn, Catherine McCormack, Josh Lucas, Elizabeth Hurley, Sarah Polley, Ciarán Hinds, Ulrich Thomsen, Anders W. Berthelsen, and Katrin Cartlidge
DIRECTOR:  Kathryn Bigelow
WRITERS:  Alice Arlen and Christopher Kyle (based upon the novel by Anita Shreve)
PRODUCERS:  Janet Yang, Sigurjon Sighvatsson, and A. Kitman Ho
GENRES:  Drama, Mystery, Thriller
RATING:  MPAA - R for violence, sexuality/nudity, and brief language
DISTRIBUTOR:  Lionsgate

This is the sixth review in a series focusing on the films of director Kathryn Bigelow for Women's Month at The Comic Book Bin.

Two couples: Thomas and Jean Janes (Sean Penn and Catherine McCormack) and Thomas' brother, Rich Janes (Josh Lucas), and his girlfriend, Adaline Gunne (Elizabeth Hurley) take a boat trip to the island of Smuttynose, off the New Hampshire.  Jean is conducting a personal investigation of the double murder of two women back in 1873.  Having unearthed an eyewitness account of the murders, Jane seeks to prove that the Louis Wagner (Ciarán Hinds), the man executed for the crimes, was innocent, and that his accuser, Maren Hontvedt (Sarah Polley), was instead the murderer.  The film moves back and forth between the present day and the past, dredging up the incidents surrounding the murders and also the troubles in Thomas and Jean's marriage.

After making films that fit one way or another in the action genre, director Kathryn Bigelow tackled dysfunctional marriages, dark family secrets, and murder in the film, The Weight of Water.  Quite skilled at creating mood and atmosphere (as shown in her earlier works), Bigelow constructs a movie in which disappointment and resignation saturate the story and anger boils mightily beneath the surface.

The jumps in time, between the present and 1973, aren't really a distraction; rather they build up tension and allow the stronger half of the film, Maren Hontvedt's story and the murders in 1873, to support the weaker half, the Janes' boat trip.  Watching the film, one gets the idea that Bigelow was enamored with Maren Hontvedt's half of the film and not as interested the present day half featuring the tense dynamic between Thomas, Jean, Rich, and Adaline.  Connection with the present day sub-plots isn't fun; at times, Bigelow handles them a little clumsily.  On the other hand, she uses the riveting and bloody tale of 1873 to carry the past and present to an ending that is both gut wrenching and heavy.  Here, through Sarah Polley as Maren, Bigelow makes her strongest case that the mistakes of the past, like insistent ghosts, never leave.  They will drown the future if they aren't guarded against - even in a small moment of weakness when the mind, body and soul lapse into rage.

B