IT is hard not to love everything that Jennifer Connelly does. Whether you remember her from her early career (Rocketeer), mid-career (Requiem for a Dream) or later career (House of Sand and Fog), her performances have a resonance to them that tells the audience we need to care about her – that we must care about her. That force is put to use in this very wet horror film, one of the few aimed at a female audience.
Director Walter Salles, fresh from his triumph on The Motorcycle Diaries, ventures into the land of The Ring with this remake of the Japanese Dark Water of 2002.
The story is simple. Dahlia Williams (Connelly, pictured), separated from her husband, takes their small daughter to live in Roosevelt Island. There, the pair inhabit an apartment block made of sodden walls and weather gloomy enough to make a London winter look appealing.
At least the apartment is close to a good school and the estate agent (cunningly played, as ever, by John C Reilly) makes this miserable contract fun at the beginning at least.
The leak from the ceiling and the oddball apartment workers are soon superseded as concerns when the daughter starts talking to an imaginary friend. More atmospheric than scary, more wet than wild, Dark Water is a tour de force of production values – the film looks great and its spooky, moist design will have you feeling pruney by the time you step out of the cinema.
What this Hollywood debut by Salles won’t do, however, is frighten you.
Tim Roth and Pete Postlethwaite round out the terrific cast and do their creepy utmost.