The Weight of Water

A curious movie from Bigelow, this marks a departure from 'male' genre pics in favour of a double helping of melodrama, based on Anita Shreve's novel. In the present tense, McCormack, poet husband Penn, brother Lucas and sexpot Hurley go sailing off Smuttynose Island. A century earlier, Polley had been found there, the sole survivor of a senseless axe murderer who had slaughtered her sisters. It's often quite brilliantly directed - Bigelow even gets a performance out of Hurley - and the sexual politics are intriguing, but you can't get away from the problem that the plot is all in the past.