Dark Water

For a movie set in NYC, there certainly were incessantly rainy days. It starts out with Dahlia as a child waiting for her ever late mother to pick her up from school, and it is raining. Dahlia’s mother was an alcoholic. Flash forward, and Dahlia has a broken marriage with Kyle, and a daughter Ceci. She needs a cheaper place to live, and doesn’t want to follow Kyle to Jersey City. She gets an apartment on Roosevelt Island, 2 blocks from a great school for Ceci. While looking at the apartment, Ceci wanders up the stairs to the roof, and finds a Hello Kitty backpack, and the name inside is Natasha. The apartment manager says it will be kept for a week to see if it is claimed. Meanwhile, leaks start in the ceiling, and the Apartment above, 10F, isn’t occupied, as the husband wife and daughter left. They were Russian. At school, Ceci gets fixated on an imaginary friend, and the water leaks become worse. And that is when the plot really deepens, things start to get very interesting, and the ending is quite a jolt. Strong performances.

The movie itself, on it's own merits is a fairly standard movie of it's type. What made it genuinely creepy is it's relation to the very sad, true, Elisa Lam story

When beautiful Dahlia (Jennifer Connolly) goes through an ugly divorce and custody battle with ex-husband Kyle (Dougray Scott) over their daughter Ceci (Ariel Gade), she decides to move to Roosevelt Island in order to live closer to the best school for their daughter. Kyle doesn't care for Dahlia's decision but is unable to stop her from moving into a horrid and weirdly disturbing rent-controlled apartment complex, sprawling and psychologically dark.John C. Reilly plays landlord Mr. Murray, an overzealous and officious man who prefers to avoid problems with the large complex once pushing the hard sell to its tenants. He repeatedly passes off Dahlia's problems to the building's super, Mr. Veeck (played by Pete Postlehwaite), a cantankerous old man without an ounce of friendliness and more than a little odd.In Dahlia's tiny, dilapidated apartment, in spite of recent paint and both Veeck and Murray's promise of considerable work done, the ceiling in the bedroom begins leaking dark and murky water. Veeck blames it on two juvenile delinquents who break into the empty apartment above and vandalize it. Then Ceci's new teacher (played by Camryn Manheim) informs Dahlia that Ceci has an 'imaginary friend' and is becoming antisocial within the classroom.Ceci's behavior inside the darkly unsettling complex becomes more and more bizarre, leading Dahlia to discover an unlocked door to a roof without a railing and a rusted water tower menacing the filthy rooftop. Dahlia starts to wonder why she is having dark dreams, dreams of her own childhood, and why Ceci is infatuated with 'Nastasha', the girl who lives upstairs.But the apartment upstairs is empty and flooded with gruesomely fetid water, the same water leaking into Dahlia's apartment, so Dahlia forces Veeck to tell her the truth about the absent family from above.'Dark Water' is a very good psychological thriller. The performances of Jennifer Connolly and Dougray Scott (two of my favorites), along with Pete Postlethwaite, Camryn Manheim, and John C. Reilly are exceptional, their talents bringing justice to the dilapidated and unforgiving eeriness of the apartment complex.The nastiness of the unclean water is presented so expertly that I could actually smell its foulness. Dahlia's slide into depression and anxiety is very well portrayed as she questions her own sanity in the mess that has enveloped her and Ceci's lives. The overall creepiness of this movie definitely deserves five stars, along with the photography, script, editing, and director Walter Salles.'Dark Water' is not the fast paced gore-fest us horror aficionado's enjoy, but the stealthy and creeping terror of unstable minds, decrepit architecture, a slow slide into madness, and the unworldly forces of the dead pushing their way into our lives. A nice surprise awaits you at the film's conclusion, also. I definitely believe this movie is worth a purchase. Enjoy!

Cliff notes: Jennifer Connelly plays a mother who is in the throws of a nasty divorce after her husband decides he wants to be with his mistress. She and her daughter are forced to move into a hell hole apartment, for its affordability, on Roosevelt Island, NYC. The building is "post apocalyptic chic", you expect to find heroin junkies and dead hookers around every corner and in every closet. It's terrible. Almost immediately, her adorable daughter makes a friend. A friend we can't see. Her teacher at her new school is concerned about her new "friend" and soon her mother becomes alarmed as well. Dark, murky water begins pooling on the ceiling in the little girl's room and it grows bigger each day. Where is this coming from? Why is it just in this one spot? Hmm, that's for you to find out! No spoiler here! Overview: I love Jennifer Connelly and she does not disappoint in this well made paranormal thriller. Don't expect gratuitous jump scares peppered throughout, this is taught and well done from beginning to end and the movie doesn't need those. The cinematography is dark and brooding mirroring the film's purpose. There's no fancy CGI because it's not needed, and I can appreciate that. The supporting cast like, John C. Reilly and Camryn Manheim are wonderful and serve their characters well. The little girl that plays the daughter is wonderful in this movie and is so cute, you want to reach out and hug her. I really like this movie and have watched it several times over the years, it's just so well done. If you enjoy "smart" thrillers that are more "under your skin creepy", rather than slasher, blood and guts with tons of CGI....then this movie is for you.

This is a slow-burn, atmospheric movie. It's not your average horror flick focused on cheap jumps, because of the sadness and human tragedy at its core. It lingered with me. The characters are carefully fleshed out, elevating it out of the B movie category. Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly ) is a flawed young woman recovering from a traumatic childhood, yet facing her troubles with quiet courage, the kind that makes you get out of bed and face another hopeless day. John C. Reilly's shady landlord and Pete Postlethwaite's nasty handyman are just a joy to watch -- sleazy, unlikable characters, yet something very sad and almost endearing about the smallness of their lives. The sense of futility and the relentless grip of poverty leeching the colors out of life is astutely captured. But I mostly love it for the grungy shots of Roosevelt Island (all tinted sepia, and hinting at an unspeakable sadness) and 'girl alone against the world' vibe.

Faithful remake of Hideo Nakata's J- Horror original is to my mind the better film.A separated mother and her young daughter move into a dingy apartment on the forbidding Roosevelt Island, New York and are soon being "visited" by the daughter of the previous tenants of the apartment directly above them.Brooding atmosphere,excellent performances, well paced and directed with sensitivity by Walter Salles this is a fine example of the "ghost story".People of limited attention seem unable to differentiate between a well told story and ..hey when's the next death.This is the former.If you are not touched by the ending then you are either dead, 16 or really don't get movies.

Oh dear. On paper, it couldn't fail; Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Connelly in the lead; the ever-reliable Pete Postlethwaite in support; a story from Hideo Nakata, the author of The Ring; and the resources of the mighty Touchstone backing the picture. All that was missing, it seems upon watching this almost haphazard series of scenes, was a director. The plot is so basic that commenting on it gives the game away, so suffice it to say, Dahlia Williams [Connelly] and her 5-year old daughter [a superb turn by young Ariel Gade] are forced by post-divorce reduced circumstances to relocate to a run-down apartment in a bad neighbourhood (if this was the 30's it would have been a spooky mansion), where they hear mysterious noises from the apartment above, from which the incumbent family mysteriously disappeared some months previously. The couple had a young daughter. The opening minutes of the film point out, with all the subtlety of an earthquake, that there is a water tower on the building's roof. And you can probably work out the rest from there. Even allowing for the fact that the plot is as thin as the walls of Dahlia's apartment, a good film could still have been fashioned from the premise on view here, and indeed, might actually well have been originally; the presented 101-minute film gives the appearance of several crucial scenes having been cut (if they were never actually shot, the director, Walter Salles, should have been). A sub-text of the lead character suffering a mental breakdown, and allusions to a corresponding relationship with her mother that ties in with the plot are never followed up; while the denouement is almost as brusque as a Scooby Doo unmasking, with the `villain' all but sneering "I'd have got away with it too if it weren't for you pesky kids". The lighting is depressing and oppressive - not just de rigour scary-movie-dark, but an all-encompassing seaweed dank that makes one turn the brightness up on the remote control just to see what is going on [to discover the answer is, not a lot]. Pete Postlethwaite, who is the only other character of substance in what is essentially a one-woman ensemble piece (paradox intended) sports an accent that should have its own Special Feature in the DVD Extras - Guess The Source (is he Polish? A native Bronxer with severe adenoid problems? Best bet is to stick on the subtitles whenever he appears). Further disappointment for the lads will no doubt be forthcoming when they discover that Connelly, possessor of probably the best body in Hollywood, fails to get as wet as depicted on the cover for more that 10 seconds, but, the film remains eminently watchable purely because Ms C is both naturally charismatic and an immensely gifted actress. Whether too many people will reach for this DVD for a second viewing is debateable though.

Non è propriamente un film horror. A dire la verità mi sembra più un thriller psicologico, dove certe situazioni si presentano solo nella mente di Dahlia Williams, madre di Cecilia, separata dal marito e in procinto di affrontare i problemi di una mamma single. Per di più, l'abbandono di sua madre quando lei era ancora bambina, ingigantisce le sue paure e la sua sensazione di inadeguatezza per il ruolo che dovrà affrontare.E anche la piccola Cecilia, però, dimostra di avere gli stessi "poteri" della madre, pur gestendoli in maniera più serena.Forse non un capolavoro, ma l'atmosfera di questo film è talmente claustrofobica che rende molto reali tutte le situazioni e le fa vivere allo spettatore.Condomini tetri ed in disfacimento, personaggi strani ed inquietanti, cielo plumbeo ed un'incessante pioggia.Acqua dal cielo, acqua nell'appartamento: diciamo che l'acqua è una costante in questo film.Ottime le interpretazioni di tutto il cast. Jennifer Connelly sempre splendida, ed un'interpretazione molto buona da parte della piccola Ariel Gade nei panni di Cecilia.Molto buona la qualità del DVD.

Excellent

a mother in the beginings of a divorce moves to a bad block of flats where the water is always leaking and the daughter has an invisible friend,which as time goes by the mother has a dream and goes on the roof to find the little girl that went missing some time a go drown in the roof water tower,but the mother has to make a gruesome choice as the spirit of the girl is drowning her daughter the mother chooses to be the girls mother for life,leaving her daughter behind,a good film