Plot
Dahlia battles her ex-husband Kyle on shared custody conditions of their five-year-old daughter, Ceci. Kyle wants Ceci to live closer to his apartment in Jersey City, where there is a nearby school and rents are affordable. Spitefully, Dahlia overpays for a dilapidated complex, with no other children, on Roosevelt Island –despite Ceci being able to access the dangerous and unprotected rooftop and its water tower. After they move in, the bedroom ceiling leaks dark water. Dahlia finds the apartment above flooded and a family portrait of the former tenants, the Rimsky family: a mother, father, and a girl who is Ceci's age. She complains to the manager and to the superintendent, Veeck, about the water, but they do nothing. Paranoid, she complains to her lawyer, Platzer, that Kyle paid people to damage the plumbing.
Dahlia is haunted by ghostly visions and a recurring nightmare in which Mrs. Rimsky threatens to harm Ceci if Dahlia talks to the police. Ceci's teacher is troubled by her "imaginary friend", Natasha, and Dahlia catches Ceci talking to Natasha as well. In the bathroom, Ceci passes out as dark water gushes from the toilets and sinks.
That night, Dahlia sees water spilling from the water tower. Inside, she finds Natasha's body and calls the police. Veeck is arrested, as he was aware of the body, which was why he refused to fix the complex's plumbing problems. Veeck admits that the Rimskys paid him to keep quiet about their wilful neglect of Natasha. Left to fend for herself, Natasha fell into the water and drowned, becoming a vengeful ghost who is jealous of Ceci.
Dahlia finally decides that perhaps the situation is unsafe for Ceci, and will move closer to Kyle. Dahlia is packing and Ceci is taking a bath when Natasha visits Dahlia, begging her not to leave. Natasha attempts to drown Ceci until Dahlia promises to be her mother, at which point Natasha drowns Dahlia; they walk the hall together as ghosts.
Ceci moves in with Kyle. Three weeks later, they pick up the last of her belongings from the old apartment. Dahlia's ghost temporarily traps Ceci in the elevator, telling her she will always be with her. The elevator door opens, and Kyle takes Ceci home.
Reception
Box office
Dark Water played in 2,657 theaters with a complete average run of 3.2 weeks. The film made $10 million, which is 39% of the movie's total gross, on its opening weekend. It went on to make $25.5 million in the US [3] and $24 million [3] in the international box office, adding up to a worldwide box office total of $49.5 million. [5]
Critical response
Dark Water holds a 47% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 154 reviews and an average score of 5.54/10. The site's critics' consensus reads: "All the atmospherics in Dark Water can't make up for the lack of genuine scares." [6] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 52 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. [7] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D−" on an A+ to F scale. [8]
William Thomas described the film in Empire as "interesting and unsettling, but never terrifying. Best viewed as a family drama-come-Tale Of The Unexpected rather than a full-on horror". [9] For Rolling Stone , Peter Travers wrote, "A classy ghost story is just the ticket in a summer of crass jolts... Screenwriter Rafael Yglesias (Fearless) stays alert to the psychological fears that underpin the supernatural doings in the apartment upstairs. Connelly digs deep into the role of a woman with issues of abandonment and rage that slowly reveal their roots. In a movie with more subtext than Rosemary’s Baby , nearly everyone, including Tim Roth as Dahlia’s lawyer, harbors secrets. Salles unleashes a torrent of suspense for one purpose: to plumb the violence of the mind." [10]
Todd McCarthy of Variety called it "well-crafted but thoroughly unsuspenseful" and said it "is dripping with clammy, claustrophobic atmosphere, but ultimately reveals itself as just another mildewed, child-centric ghost story of little import or resonance." [11] From The Washington Post , Ann Hornaday described the film as a "tasteful but unremitting bummer and yet one more case of an Oscar-winning actress proving that she can still do the kinds of disposable movies big awards are supposedly meant to banish from your résume forever." [12] For Slant Magazine Nick Schager wrote that the film improves on the source material characterizations, while over explaining the supernatural events. He concluded by saying, "this slick adaptation is also a moldy, third-generation retread of The Ring." [13]
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