Request for spoilers

[eurydicebound]

So I keep seeing ads for the movie Dark Water. As God is my witness, I will never, ever watch this film. Not in a million years. Not even with the love I bear for almost everything Jennifer Connelly is in. Not even given that it has Dougray Scott (fun to look at), Tim Roth (excellent actor), and Pete Postlethwaite (an acting god) in it. I am so very, very bad at tolerating horror films that it's just not going to happen, which is a shame. That said, better to miss one good film than live in fear of every spigot in my house for a month or so. Ugh.

Given my limitations, I still really, really want to know what the story is. I want to know the ending and all. I just don't want to watch the damned thing to find it out. Can anyone be a love and spoil the hell out of it for me? I'd truly appreciate it. Thanks.

Comments

[bruceb.livejournal.com]

The MoviePooper summary hits the major elements. Connelly is extremely good as a totally unglamorous woman struggling to hold a reasonable life together in an unreasonable world, and that's before the suepernatural element appears.

The dead girl is seldom deliberately malicious, it's just that she's terribly lonely. Her junkie mother left her and moved across country; her Russian emigre father didn't much care what happened to her. The warm bond between Connelly and Connelly's daughter sparks her envy, and she tries to grab onto either or both of them. The supernatural action climax has the dead girl trying to drown the live daughter, with all sorts of manifestation stuff, until Connelly realizes that she can't stop it any way but by offering herself.

The emotional payoff, though, happens a couple of scenes later. Connelly's semi-deadbeat ex-husband has (rather to his own surprise) risen to the challenge and is obviously taking care of the daughter pretty well. They've come back to the apartment some weeks later for one final round of gathering up personal stuff. Several times in the movie, we've seen the elevator of the apartment building suddenly close, the lights flicker, and a manifestation of some sort begin. It happens this time...but instead of the dead girl, Connelly's hands reach into comb and braid her daughter's hair. We do not see her face, just the neat collar of her sweater and her pale hands at work. She whispers to the daughter that she'll always be waiting, whenever the daughter needs her. Then the doors open and the daughter leaves, with a final scene and long track that suggest a life worth living continuing on despite the tragedy.

It is one of the most genuinely sad endings I can remember in a horror movie in a long time, and I am deeply glad I saw it. But I can really, really understand not wanting to touch it.

[bruceb.livejournal.com]

Following up...

What impressed me most about the resolution was its appreciation for life with all its flaws. Connelly's character loves her daughter, but she's neurotic (with flashbacks showing some of how that developed). Her ex-husband loves the daughter too, but he's kind of a flake, and obviously in that stage where every flaw of the other person gets magnified disproportionately. New York life is weird and often ugly and there's no glamour in any of this. But even with her flaws, it looks like Connelly will be a good mother to the dead girl, and her epiphany while she's trying to save her live daughter is that there's still good in the living world for her daughter - not that it will be perfect, but that there will be enough for her to have a chance to grow up well. It's very humane about this.

[pgoodman13.livejournal.com]

And now, unlike Michelle, I might have to go pick this up one of these days. I had tended to avoid it because the ad campaign made it look like one of the worst hack jobs since the damn of time. Now it sounds like something genuinely worth watching. Thanks for the basic synopsis, and the analysis.