Dark Water

Dark Water
original film poster
Directed by	Walter Salles
Produced by	Doug Davison Ashley Kramer Roy Lee
Written by	Rafael Yglesias Koji Suzuki
Starring	Jennifer Connelly Tim Roth John C. Reilly Dougray Scott Ariel Gade Pete Postlethwaite Camryn Manheim
Music by	Angelo Badalamenti
Editing by	Daniel Rezende
Distributed by	Touchstone Pictures
Release date(s)	July 8, 2005
Running time	105 min.
Language	English
Budget	$30,000,000
Gross revenue	$49,483,352

Dark Water is a 2005 American drama-horror film directed by Walter Salles and starring Jennifer Connelly. The film is a remake of the 2002 Japanese film of the same name, and also stars John C. Reilly, Pete Postlethwaite, Tim Roth, Perla Haney-Jardine and Ariel Gade. The film is based on the short story Floating Water from the horror anthology Honogurai mizu no soko kara by Koji Suzuki, author of Ring (which also had an American remake).

The film was released on July 8, 2005 and grossed almost $50 million worldwide.

Plot

When the film opens, the audience sees a young girl standing outside after school in the rain, waiting for her mother, who has yet to show up. The scene is dated 1974.

Flash forward to 2005, we see a grown-up Dahlia in the midst of a bitter mediation with her ex-husband, Kyle, over sharing custody of their daughter, Cecilia, also known as Ceci. Kyle wants Cecilia to live closer to his apartment in Jersey City so the joint-custody agreement would be easier, but Dahlia wants to move to Roosevelt Island, where she has found a good school for Cecilia. Kyle threatens to sue for full custody because he feels the distance to see his daughter is too great. He claims that Dahlia is an "unfit" mother because she was abused by her father and abandoned by her mother at a young age. He also claims that Dahlia is "mentally unstable" and suffers from debilitating migraines, though Dahlia insists the migraines are not severe. Dahlia shouts that Kyle "doesn't even remember Cecilia's birthday and that he doesn't even like playing with her".

Dahlia and Cecilia see an apartment in a complex on Roosevelt Island, which is just a few blocks from Cecilia's new school. The super of the apartment building is Mr. Veeck, who is charged with the general maintenance of the building's many lacking features. The manager, Mr. Murray, uses questionable tactics in order to rent the substandard and undersized apartment. During the tour, Cecilia sneaks up onto the roof where she finds a Hello Kitty backpack near a large water tank. They leave the bag with Mr. Veeck, and Mr. Murray promises Cecilia that she can have it if no one claims it in a week. Cecilia, who has disliked the apartment from the moment she arrived, now wants desperately to live there. Dahlia agrees and they move in.

Shortly after moving in, the ceiling in the bedroom begins to leak dark water. The source is the apartment above, 10F, where a family, the Rimskys, lived up until a month ago. Since then, two teens have reportedly been vandalizing the apartment. At one point, Dahlia enters 10F and finds the place flooded, with dark water flowing from every faucet in the apartment and from the walls and toilet. Dahlia finds a family portrait of the former tenants. There is a mother, father, and young girl who looks about Cecilia's age. Dahlia complains to both Mr. Veeck and Mr. Murray about the water, but the former does little about it despite the insistence of the latter. Things become even more strange for Dahlia when she has dreams of a little girl who appears to be Cecilia returning from a visit to her father's home, but the girl's appearance changes every time Dahlia looks away from her in the dream, so that she looks like the young girl in the portrait in 10F.

Cecilia has started school, but according to her new teacher, she isn’t fitting in with the class and is spending too much time with an imaginary friend, named Natasha. A psychologist is recommended, but Dahlia refuses and tells Cecilia to ignore Natasha. This is made more difficult when Dahlia discovers the Hello Kitty backpack in the laundry room's garbage, although Mr. Veeck had said it was claimed. Dahlia leaves it in the garbage, but Cecilia finds it—in the elevator. The name in the backpack reads “Natasha Rimsky”.

The ceiling, shoddily patched up by Mr. Veeck, begins to leak again, but more heavily than before. At school, Cecilia appears to get into a fight with Natasha, who appears to control Cecilia's hand while painting. She's taken to the girls’ bathroom where she passes out after dark water starts gushing from the toilets and sinks. Dahlia, who is meeting with her lawyer, can’t be reached at work, so Kyle picks her up from the hospital and takes her to his apartment without telling Dahlia.

Dahlia breaks down when she can’t find her daughter and begins having strange dreams. These lead her back onto the roof and up the ladder of the water tank. She looks inside and finds Natasha’s body in there. When the police arrive, they discover that there was a grave miscommunication between the Rimskys; the father thought that Natasha was with her mother while the mother thought the girl was with her father. The father was an alcoholic who was known for always shouting, and the mom was no better. The mother left because she didn't feel she could care for Natasha, and the father left soon afterward, somehow under the impression that Natasha was with her mother. The girl was left alone in the abandoned apartment and fell into the water tank, which Mr. Veeck had left open. He was aware of her body, which was why he refused to fix the water problem plaguing the complex. Mr. Veeck is arrested and Mr. Murray is questioned.

Dahlia agrees to move closer to Kyle so the shared custody will go easier. As Dahlia is packing, Cecilia is taking a bath. A girl in a hooded bathrobe comes out of the bathroom, wanting to read with Dahlia. Dahlia begins reading, but when she hears voices in the bathroom, she realizes that the girl in the bathrobe is Natasha. Natasha begs Dahlia not to leave her, but Dahlia rushes into the bathroom to save Cecilia. Natasha then locks Cecilia in the bathtub (which has a shatterproof panel instead of a curtain) and holds her underwater. Dahlia pleads with Natasha, promising to be her mother forever. Natasha lets Cecilia go and floods the apartment, causing Dahlia to drown and fulfill her promise. Her ghost and that of Natasha then walk away down the hallway.

Kyle picks up the traumatized Cecilia from the police station, and weeks later, the two go back to pick up the rest of her stuff. Cecilia has a flashback of her and her mother looking at pictures together, and in the elevator, her mother's ghost braids her hair and comforts her—telling her she will always be there. Kyle, momentarily horrified with a malfunction in the elevator, the weird behavior of his daughter, and perhaps noticing her hair had been braided while in the elevator, finally takes her away to his own apartment in Jersey City.

Differences between Japanese and U.S. versions

• In the Japanese version, Yoshimi (Dahlia) dies with Mitsuko (Natasha) in the elevator, while it's in the bathroom in the U.S. version. In the U.S. version it is clearer that Natasha would immediately kill Cecilia if Dahlia didn't promise to be the girl's mother. In the Japanese version, the ghost is much slower to act against the living child.
• At the end of the Japanese version, Ikuko (Cecilia) returns to the apartment room 10 years later as a teenager and sees her mother, while in the U.S. version she encounters her in the elevator three weeks later.
• Mr. Kamiya (Mr. Veeck) in the Japanese version is not arrested and is a much more minor character.
• The suspicious/threatening teenage boys are absent from the Japanese version.
• Mitsuko's face is not as clearly seen as Natasha's, and she wears a yellow raincoat, as opposed to Natasha's red dress.
• In the Japanese version, the backpack has a bunny on it, while in the U.S. version has a Hello Kitty backpack.
• Mitsuko has been dead for 2 years, while Natasha has been dead for two weeks.

DVD

Dark Water is available on DVD, in two releases. One release is in pan and scan full screen and includes the theatrical cut, which is PG-13 and runs 107 minutes. The other is in widescreen (aspect ratio 2.35:1) and includes an Unrated cut, which is actually shorter than the theatrical cut and runs at 103 minutes. Note that exact specifications vary by DVD region. There is also a PlayStation Portable UMD Video version of the movie.

External links

• Dark Water at the Internet Movie Database
• Dark Water at Allmovie
• Dark Water at Rotten Tomatoes
• Dark Water at Metacritic
• Dark Water at Box Office Mojo