Film Review: Not Much to Build Upon in Vague ‘Dream House’

Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 30, 2011 - 2:35pm

CHICAGO – Mixing three actors with great reputations – Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Naomi Watts – with Jim Sheridan, a six time Oscar nominated director, would assume to yield some fruitful results. But with “Dream House,” the artifice is indistinct and ill-defined, ultimately much ado about nothing.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

Trying for a psychological horror film, like Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” Sheridan keeps firing the usual arrows toward the target, but they either fail to get there or miss. The cast is game, the elements and atmosphere to tell such a story are in place, but either the connections that make these type of films work are not there, or the screenplay by David Loucka was too inaccessible for Sheridan to complete a decent translation.

Daniel Craig is Will Atenton, a high level publishing executive who is on his last day at the office. He is quitting to write the great American novel, and has purchased a suburban “dream house” to concentrate his efforts. His wife Libby (Rachel Weisz) and two children are waiting for him with open arms, as they all work to restore the vintage house. All seems well, until some unusual “bumps in the night” and bizarre rituals are discovered.

Unbeknownst to Will and Libby is that the house was the scene of a brutal murder, where a wife and kids were killed and the husband was the suspect. It seems like the whole town has conspired against telling them this information, including their mysterious neighbor Ann (Naomi Watts). The more Will tries to find out about the situation, the less the dream house seems safe. It’s as if the whole circumstance has happened to him before.

“Dream House” opens everywhere on September 30th. Featuring Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, Marton Cscokas and Jane Alexander. Screenplay by David Loucka, directed by Jim Sheridan. Rated “PG-13”