Jessica was over the other day. When she saw that I’d rented Dark Water, she said, “Did you rent this because Jennifer Connelly is in it?” My answer, with mock incredulity, was something along the lines of, “I don’t know what you’re talking about” because, of course, she was entirely correct.

It serves me right because as much as I like Connelly, I didn’t like the movie. I watched 41 minutes of it and then gave up. I’ve seen films that take a very long time to set things up before the good stuff starts, but they’ve somehow managed to keep things interesting and not be so blatantly obvious about preparing us for what’s coming. Dark Water failed in this regard. I was less than ten minutes from the half-way point and still felt that throwing away 41 minutes would be a better use of my time than possibly wasting an additional 59 minutes.

You’d think that it would be hard to screw up a film with the likes of Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly, and Pete Postlethwaite, but you’d be wrong.

DVD package cover ©2005 Touchstone Pictures