Tags:
Film: Dream House
Year: 2011
Director: Jim Sheridan
Writer: David Loucka
Starring: Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Naomi Watts
Review:
In this film we begin with a man, played by Daniel Craig, on his last day at work as an editor in what is a large book firm. Everyone is happy to see him go and he’s excited to leave the city to move into his dream house. He then says bye to an older woman and gets on a train for home, she is played by Jane Alexander. On his train ride home, he encounters a man played by Elias Koteas. Craig gives him an odd look and moves away from him.
Craig comes home to his family, with his wife being Rachel Weisz and his two daughters, played by real life sisters Taylor Geare and Claire Geare. They begin to fix up the house.
Across the street lives a woman, played by Naomi Watts, with her daughter, who is played by Rachel G. Fox. She is divorced from her husband, who is played by Marton Csokas, and they split custody of their child. They argue as this goes on and you can see that it is messy.
This is where things get weird. Craig chases a bunch of kids from his basement where they are celebrating the anniversary of the massacre that happened there. One of the kids even recognizes Craig. The next day, one of his daughters overhears a conversation of Fox while she is on the phone and panics. Craig goes over there to talk to her and Watts, but the daughter is freaked out.
Watts soon after brings a pot of stew over for Craig and when he tells Weisz to come down, Watts looks at him funny and leaves. Craig investigates what happened in his house. It turns out a man was thought to have killed his wife and two daughters, with the wife shooting him in the head in a struggle.
Craig and his family sees someone outside, spying on them. When Craig goes after him though, the person flees to their car and tries to run him over. When the police show up, they tell him they didn’t see anyone else and for Craig to calm down.
He then goes on a search to figure out the truth of what happened in his house. This leads to a startling discovery of the truth of what has happened in Craig’s dream house. Who committed the murders? Who is Craig really? What is the truth of all this.
Now this is the second time that I’ve viewed this film. The first time I didn’t see either twist coming and both of them are major. I really liked the concept of the film; it is just something that we’ve seen before. This is more of a drama, thriller than a horror film, but I am including this here due the supernatural elements of the film. Plus there was a triple homicide. The first twist as I’ve alluded to was the better of the two. When that hits, you start to think about everything you’ve seen and start to realize how they make sense now. There are hints along the way. The other twist was a little bit harder to catch and wasn’t horrible. I also felt that the ending was pretty good as well.
The cast of this film is great. Craig is surprisingly a solid actor despite being typecast as more of an action guy. This film he is a little bit flat to me, but I still think he plays the role well enough. His character has an interesting mental condition. Watts is good, but she really doesn’t get a lot of screen time and for some reason she comes off very passive in this film. Weisz and Koteas are the same as well. I thought the two sisters weren’t bad and Fox was decent too for their age.
Now I will say that for some reason this film ends up being boring a bit. I think a lot of that was due to the studio stepping in and changing things that director Jim Sheridan had shot. It is a shame to say that, because studios many times think they know what makes things better, but end up failing. It seems to focus more on the happy go lucky aspects of the family and less trying to focus on the solving of the murder that ends up as the focal. I think of the editing of it was messed up due to this interference. The film doesn’t really need a lot of effects. What I saw looked fine and I had no issues. The same with the score of the film, in that it didn’t stand out to me, but didn’t take me away from the film either.
Despite all that I have said, I still would recommend giving it a view though. The acting is alright, the story is weird, but interesting. It is fun trying to figure what is going on and to discover the truth of what happened on that fateful day. There are some good twists in the film. This film does have re-watchable, especially to piece things together in the film. I would say that this is a slightly above average film. There are others in the genre that has done it better, but this one isn’t horrible.
My Rating: 6 out of 10