No prizes for guessing our Star of the Week in Cyprus cinemas. Two (2) films starring Daniel Craig opened on the same day last weekend, though in fact their back-stories are entirely different. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a big end-of-year release, designed for box-office records and major awards (in the event, it under-performed slightly on both counts). Dream House is the orphaned, mutilated movie which Craig refused to publicise in protest at the studio’s treatment of director Jim Sheridan (who tried to get his name off the credits) – though he also fell in love with co-star Rachel Weisz, and they ended up getting married last summer. Every cloud has a silver lining.
Why was Sheridan so peeved? Partly because the film was marketed as a horror movie, which it patently isn’t – though it does begin with intimations of a haunted-house flick like Insidious, before morphing into something else (as indeed did Insidious). Daniel, Rachel and their two little daughters move from New York to a big house in a small town: Dan’s going to write a novel while Rachel simpers (“I feel so safe when you’re here!”) and the kids giggle happily. Alas, things go wrong. One of the girls sees a man at the window. Daniel finds footprints in the snow outside. Then one night (rather hilariously) he goes down to the basement to find an entire troop of teenagers lurking there, playing their twisted adolescent games. “He’s back!” they chorus spookily. Turns out the dream house is a former murder site where a wife and two little girls were murdered – apparently by the husband, who’s now been released after five years in the loony bin. Is he back? Is he haunting his old house? Is he the man at the window? What’s the deal with mysterious neighbour Naomi Watts, who clearly knows more than she’s letting on?
Is there a twist? Yes, there’s a twist, occurring roughly two-thirds of the way through. It wouldn’t be fair to reveal it (though apparently they did in the trailer), but it’s also hard to talk about the film without revealing it – because the final act is where most of its problems lie. Dream House is a strange unwieldy beast, based around two pillars of the cultural (American) edifice in the early 21st century. The first half is about home invasion, a popular subject right now whether done straight (see, for instance, Trespass) or dressed up as haunted-house horror (see Paranormal Activity) – both of them linked to the Culture of Fear that makes middle-class parents lock their windows and keep their children indoors – while the second half is about therapy, especially the need for ‘closure’. The film tries to be a thriller, a fantasy drama and a love story, all at the same time. No wonder it comes off confused.
Dream House is the kind of movie where the main plot doesn’t work so you start noticing all the small idiocies. The script wants to leave our hero alone with Naomi’s daughter for a few moments (they have things to talk about), so we get Naomi saying “I’ll go run you a bath” then coming back a few moments later to report that the water is running. (Is he six years old? Why does she have to run him a bath?) The truth about That Night – I can say no more – is unconvincing, nor is it clear why ‘Peter Ward’ would’ve been convicted, based on those facts. Some of the detail (the girls’ real names, for instance) just seems risible.
But the real issue isn’t this or that implausible detail – it’s that Dream House never seems to know what it’s trying to do. Is the hero trying to clear his name or find peace of mind (or both)? Is the fantasy to be embraced or destroyed (or both)? Then there’s Daniel Craig, looking out of place in the domestic bliss of the first half and curiously sullen in that weird early scene with the estate agent – a reminder, having seen him twice in one week, that he’s really quite a miserable git as a screen persona. “I’m tired,” he mumbles in Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and also seems drained and long-suffering in Dream House; it’s not that he comes off obnoxious – it’s just that he constantly seems on the point of heaving a big sigh, burying his head in his hands and asking everyone to go away and leave him alone. Hopefully life as a newlywed will cheer him up in time for the new James Bond.
DIRECTED BY Jim Sheridan
STARRING Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts
US 2011 92 mins
