Review of The Weight of Water (2001) by Tanya V — 08 May 2010

This movie switches between the lurid and sensational axe murder of two women in 1873 and the modern day story of a newspaper photographer, Jean (Catherine McCormack) who is researching the crime over 100 years later. Sarah Polley's performance as Maren Hontredt, a young and hard-working Norwegian woman bought to this land far away from her family and married to a much older man is compelling and gripping. She struggles with a cold marriage, a desperate secret and a building internal rage that threatens her sanity. The past sequences were awesome, but I found the present day scene was predictable and lacked character development and continuity. Nevertheless Sean Penn is engaging to watch, and Liz Hurley is well cast as a flirty seductress.

"Women's motives are always more concealed than men's," and this is revealed as we witness the powerful fury of violent emotions that sometimes overtake good people and move them to acts of horror.