Dark Water MPAA Rating: PG-13 Entertainment: +2 Content: -3

Dark Water is a suspense thriller staring Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly as the newly separated mom, Dahlia Williams. Forced to move across the river from Manhattan due to an ugly divorce, Dahlia and her daughter, Ceci (Ariel Gade), find a run-down, cramped and leaky apartment. The only positive aspect of the building is its proximity to a good school for Ceci. The apartment manager (John C. Reilly) is full of unkept promises, and its supervisor (Pete Postlethwaite) is grumpy and unhelpful. The Williams notice a leak in the bedroom ceiling that gets touched up but never repaired. Hearing noises in the apartment above them, Dahlia takes it upon herself to find the source of the leak. She discovers the link between the noise and the leaks, which brings up her own childhood memories of abandonment and eventually forces her to decide the fate of her own daughter.

In this sad tale of childhood neglect and abandonment, Dahlia Williams knows the tragedy of being unloved by her mother and clearly wants to make things different for her own daughter. Unfortunately, Dahlia cant make her marriage work, and her husband claims that she is emotionally disturbed. Everything about Dark Water is eerie: the music, the people, the apartment building and even the weather with constant rain. Its only redeeming aspect is the love Dahlia has for her daughter a love that will tragically be tested in the end. Throughout the movie, everyone is waiting for the plumber to show up and fix the leaky roof. But this movie does not need a plumber; it needs an editor who will leave it in pieces on the editing-room floor. Due to disturbing images and the tragic death of a child, Preview cannot recommend this movie.

Preview Reviewer: Henry J. Rogers
Distributor: Touchstone Pictures