Dark Water

Dark Water follows Dahlia Williams, a mother starting over with her five-year-old daughter, Ceci, after the end of her marriage. She moves into a run-down apartment building in New York and tries to build a stable life, but the separation turns into a custody dispute that wears her down. Meanwhile, the apartment itself becomes a source of unease: unexplained sounds come from the empty unit above, and a dark stain spreads across the bedroom ceiling as water keeps seeping through. Dahlia's grip on her situation loosens as she tries to work out what is happening in the building and protect her daughter.

The film was directed by Walter Salles, released in 2005 as the fourth of the nine features listed for him, between The Motorcycle Diaries and Paris Je T'aime. Rafael Yglesias wrote the screenplay, and the producers were Doug Davison, Roy Lee and Bill Mechanic. Jennifer Connelly plays Dahlia, with John C. Reilly, Tim Roth, Dougray Scott, Pete Postlethwaite and Ariel Gade among the credited cast of twenty-three.

Made for a budget of 30 million dollars, Dark Water took about 68 million dollars worldwide, a modest return. Reception was middling rather than enthusiastic: it holds a 5.6 rating on IMDb from roughly 68,000 votes and a 5.7 on TMDB from just over a thousand votes. A critics' rating of 5.9 from 150 reviews places professional opinion slightly above the audience scores on both platforms, though all three sit in similar territory.