The Weight of Water

"Women's motives are always
more concealed than men's."

3 STARS

Very Swimming Pool. If you've ever seen that movie, this is like the American version.

Starring Sean Penn, Elizabeth Hurley, Josh Lucas, and Catherine McCormack. Yet the best performance was by supporting actress Sarah Polley.

Two couples aboard a small yacht in New Hampshire mixing business with pleasure. McCormack's character is a writer/photographer (Much like the lead in Swimming Pool, now that I think of it.) who's doing a piece on the murder of two sisters on a small island off of NH in 1873. The rest are along for the ride, and early on McCormack gets very annoying with her ramblings of the murder while the others are just trying to have a good time. I found myself saying out load to her, "Geeze, shut up." A real party pooper.

The film went from passed (1873) to present, and I enjoyed the 1873 movie better. Sarah Polly played the lead in the 1873 story, and did a great job at conveying the character's stone depression and possible madness. Great job by her. Penn plays a poet, and his quips were really annoying to me as well. But he's hot, so that adds one full star already. Hurley just posed through the whole movie. In a bikini or less, tossing her hair in the wind, "Oh please.".

These movies, Swimming Pool and The Weight of Water, have a similar formula. A murder of passion + intense shots of eye contact (She looks at him. Then he looks at her. Then she looks away.) + a couple of explicit sex scenes with high tension strings soundtrack (Because then it's "tasteful".) + a lukewarm climax of action = Official Selection of the Cannes Film Festival.