Weight of Water, The

Chicago Tribune Loren King

Despite the deftness with which Bigelow handles the transitions, the modern story never attains the intrigue and tension of the period tale.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

The insistent crosscutting suggests there is something powerful between the two stories, but apart from vague connections of jealousy, emotional tension and conversations that constantly dance around the real issues, they don't resonate across the years.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

In the heaving cross-century swirl of the climax, ''Weight'' makes its point: Jealousy is timeless; Hurley is not.

Boston Globe Janice Page

Though it never rises to its full potential as a film, still offers a great deal of insight into the female condition and the timeless danger of emotions repressed.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

It's an intelligently made (and beautifully edited) picture that at the very least has a spark of life to it -- more than you can say for plenty of movies that flow through the Hollywood pipeline without a hitch.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

There is so much to admire in The Weight of Water, Kathryn Bigelow's churning screen adaptation of a novel by Anita Shreve, that when the movie finally collapses on itself late in the game, it leaves you in the frustrating position of having to pick up its scattered pieces and assemble them as best you can.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

All the elements are in place for an entertaining murder mystery, but as Bigelow meanders aimlessly back and forth through time, the plot becomes increasingly water-logged.

Variety Emanuel Levy

Despite recurrent narrative and dramatic problems, each of Bigelow's pics provides a visual treat, and this film is no exception.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

The book has been altered in mostly reasonable ways to suit the needs of the screen, but what it loses in the translation is invaluable in comprehending what led someone to pick up an ax and wipe out two-thirds of an island's population.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

Involves two mysteries -- one it gives away and the other featuring such badly drawn characters that its outcome hardly matters. But the picture looks great.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Shows glimmers of great drama, but jettisons too much essential cargo (character development, relationships, plot, common sense) in an effort to be lean and clean.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

The two stories never come close to meshing the way the filmmaker intended. The result is a well-acted movie that simply doesn't gel.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Contains multiple ax murders, lesbianism, incest, a hanging, and a storm at sea -- yet, despite all of this seemingly enticing material, it's a bore.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The actors are splendid, especially Sarah Polley and Sean Penn, but we never feel confident that these two plots fit together, belong together, or work together.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Whereas "Posession" was relatively light on its feet, this is so overloaded from the outset that it can only sink.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

As a director, Bigelow knows how to get out of the house, but she can be impatient when it comes to humdrum reality. That may account for her interest in Shreve's novel, with its epic tragedies, and it may help to explain the misguided casting of Penn and Hurley, each of whom comes equipped with an oversized personality.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Perhaps because the present-day characters are such insufferable twits -- especially the brooding Penn, who's given to tossing around stanzas by Yeats and Dylan Thomas -- the modern story feels like a device, a flimsy entrée into events that would be better accessed directly.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Penn, in particular, is so subdued he's hardly there, while Hurley's seductive, hyper-articulate Adaline is actually ludicrous, sucking suggestively on ice cubes and reciting poetry like a phone-sex operator pretending to be a book-reading babe.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Lovingly detailed but unaccountably clumsy, obviously ambitious, and unfortunately chintzy. It's also genuinely anachronistic.

LA Weekly Ron Stringer

Provides an unfulfilled promise of pleasure (providing one doesn't cave in to the spectacle of bare-chested Elizabeth Hurley sucking on an ice cube) in this heavy-handed exercise in time-vaulting literary pretension.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

Means to be heavy in terms of psychology, provocation and the examination of emotion, but it sinks like a stone the minute it hits the surface.

Film Threat Ross Williams

Dreadful.