New This Week
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Awards & Bests By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

97 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
xx Beer for My Horses
75 Boy A
xx Christmas on Mars: A Fantastical Film Freakout Featuring the Flaming Lips
48 Death Defying Acts
85 Edge of Heaven, The
33 Elite Squad
80 Encounters at the End of the World
20 Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
86 Flight of the Red Balloon, The
54 Get Smart
73 Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
34 Happening, The
25 Hell Ride
78 Hellboy II: The Golden Army
44 Henry Poole is Here
61 Incredible Hulk, The
65 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
46 Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
57 Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
xx Kiss the Bride
63 Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
73 Kung Fu Panda
52 Milarepa
62 Mister Foe
53 Mister Lonely
74 Mongol
61 On the Rumba River
83 Paranoid Park
32 Perfect Holiday, The
49 Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie, The
63 Planet B-Boy
72 Priceless
63 Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, The
70 Standard Operating Procedure
35 Star Wars: The Clone Wars
57 Stone Angel, The
47 Strangers, The
61 Stuck
55 Sukiyaki Western Django
63 This Christmas
71 To the Limit
72 Transsiberian
71 Tropic Thunder
79 Visitor, The
93 WALL-E
37 War, Inc.
xx Whaledreamers
54 What We Do Is Secret
66 When Did You Last See Your Father?
54 You Don't Mess with the Zohan
39 Young People F**king
45 Zombie Strippers

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Weight of Water, The
Lions Gate Films Inc.


5.5

based on 22 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 4 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for violence, sexuality/nudity, and brief language

Starring Catherine McCormack, Sarah Polley, Sean Penn, Josh Lucas, Elizabeth Hurley, Ciarán Hinds, Ulrich Thomsen, and Anders W. Berthelsen

Based on the novel by Anita Shreve, this is the story of a contemporary woman whose obsession with a notorious unsolved crime from the 1800s leads her to confront devastating truths in her own life. (Lions Gate Films)

GENRE(S):	Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Alice Arlen Christopher Kyle Anita Shreve (novel)
DIRECTED BY:	Kathryn Bigelow
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: March 4, 2003 Video: March 4, 2003 Theatrical: November 1, 2002
RUNNING TIME:	105 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA / France

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

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.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.5 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Lou C. gave it a 3:
Poorly directly/edited/cut, and afflicted with incredibly poor lighting, this movie will be difficult to follow for people who didn't read the book. The fact that the several of the actors in the historical plot line keep changing their accents (and hence their pronunciations of the other characters' names) just adds to the challenges. By the time the allegorical underwater scene came long, I was so thoroughly disgusted with the director's clumsiness and stupidity, I had lost all interest in the rest of the movie.

JD gave it a 9:
Elizabeth Hurley is in it. I don't care how bad it is. SHE IS HOT!!!

Zootsi J. gave it a 5:
This movie had potential, but blew it with it's pporly developed modern day characters. It was very annoying to watch them constantly smoking, and drinking and no doing much else. A blatent vehicle for the cigarette industry. The period shots were this film's only saving grace.

Stella S. gave it a 5:
Hard to follow at times.

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page

Weight of Water, The Lions Gate Films Inc.

Weight of Water, The
Lions Gate Films Inc.