Dream House is a 2011 American psychological thriller film directed by Jim Sheridan and starring Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, and Marton Csokas. It was released on September 30, 2011, in the United States and Canada by Universal Pictures and Morgan Creek Productions. Upon release, Dream House was panned by critics. The film was released by Warner Bros. in international markets.
Video Dream House (2011 film)
Plot
In 2007, Will Atenton (Daniel Craig) leaves his job as a successful editor in New York in order to spend more time with his wife, Libby (Rachel Weisz), and their two daughters, as well as to write his own book. At first, the family appears to be happy in their new home, until they discover that its previous occupants, a mother and her two small daughters, were shot to death in the house. Public opinion has condemned the father, Peter Ward, as the person responsible, but there was not enough evidence to convict Peter in court and he was also deemed mentally unfit to stand trial. Ward has been recently released from police custody and Will begins to feel he is seeing Peter watching the house.
Will visits Greenhaven Psychiatric facility, where Peter has been held for five years. He learns that on the night of the murders, Peter was shot in the head by his wife Elizabeth, who had somehow grabbed the murder weapon in the moments just before her death. In recovery, Peter could not believe he had committed the murders and so he no longer believed he was Peter Ward. He chewed his own name off all of his identification bracelets/cards/tags, leaving only his Greenhaven I.D. sequence, which revealed Peter Ward and Will Atenton to be the same person.
Unable to believe this, Will rushes home and we see his home is actually run down and condemned. Peter visits his neighbor, Ann Patterson (Naomi Watts). Ann had been a good friend to the Wards and never believed Peter was the killer. Returning to the house, Peter remembers he was on the phone with Libby when she stumbled on a burglar, who shot the little girls and wounded Libby. Peter attacked the gunman and Libby accidentally shot Peter.
Ann's ex-husband Jack and the gunman burst into the now-decrepit Ward home. It is revealed that the hit man had been hired to kill Ann, but broke into the wrong house and chose to kill the witnesses. Jack shoots the hit man in the abdomen before staging the scene so it will appear that Peter has murdered again before burning the house down. Peter regains consciousness in time to fight off Jack and rescue Ann. As Peter and Ann make it out of the house, Jack starts up the cellar steps but is doused with kerosene by the dying hit man, and Jack goes up in flames. The house burns to the ground.
Some time later, Peter--now back in New York City--walks past a major bookseller's window and sees that his book "Dream House" has become a number one national bestseller.
Maps Dream House (2011 film)
Cast
- Daniel Craig as Will Atenton / Peter Ward
- Rachel Weisz as Elizabeth 'Libby' Atenton
- Claire Geare as Katherine 'Dee Dee' Atenton
- Taylor Geare as Beatrice 'Trish' Atenton
- Naomi Watts as Ann Patterson
- Marton Csokas as Jack Patterson
- Rachel G. Fox as Chloe Patterson
- Elias Koteas as Boyce
- Jane Alexander as Dr. Fran Greeley
- Brian Murray as Dr. Medlin
Production
Director Jim Sheridan reportedly clashed with Morgan Creek's James G. Robinson constantly on the set over the shape of the script and production of the film. According to the Los Angeles Times, Sheridan tried to take his name off the film after being unhappy with the film and his relationship with Morgan Creek Productions.
Reportedly, Sheridan, Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz disliked the final cut of the film. The trailer, cut by Morgan Creek Productions, came under fire for revealing the main plot twist of the film.
Soundtrack
The score to Dream House was composed by John Debney and conducted by Robert Ziegler. Christian Clemmensen, reviewer of Filmtracks.com, gave it four out of five stars, declaring it "among the biggest surprises of 2011" and stating, "It's not clear how badly Debney's work for Dream House was butchered by the studio's frantic last minute attempts to make the film presentable, but Debney's contribution does feature a cohesive flow of development that is, at least on album, a worthy souvenir from this otherwise messy situation." The soundtrack was released 11 October 2011 and features fifteen tracks of score at a running time of fifty-six minutes.
Reception
The film was not screened in advance for critics and was critically panned. On review aggregation Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 6% based on 82 reviews, with a rating average of 3.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Dream House is punishingly slow, stuffy and way too obvious to be scary." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating to reviews, gives the film a score of 35 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".
References
External links
- Official website
- Dream House at Box Office Mojo
- Dream House on IMDb
Source of article : Wikipedia
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