El país del agua

Tom Crick (Jeremy Irons)'s wife Mary is obsessed with having a baby even thought she's well past her time. He's a history teacher struggling with know-it-all student Matthew Price (Ethan Hawke) and a restless class. He recounts his youth in the Fens in England to his class enticing them with a tale of murder. The younger versions are played by Grant Warnock and Lena Headey.

The modern day story is highlighted by the push and pull of Jeremy Irons and Ethan Hawke with Cara Buono as the teacher's pet. Director Stephen Gyllenhaal uses locations as a way of bringing the class into his story. The modern class interacts with the old stories like they are actually inside the stories.

The big discovery is Lena Headey. It's her first big film and she crushes it. She and Grant Warnock have good chemistry as young lovers. The movie is generally dreary. It's tone dark. The old story has a sense of foreboding. Mary's madness is foreshadowing something sinister in their past.

The pace is slow and takes a little too much pleasure in withholding its secret. It needs to be more interesting especially in the middle. It meanders as Hawke and Irons walks down memory lane. It isn't the most exciting thing to watch them talk about the past. A more straight forward return to the old story is probably better. Once it goes back to Headey and Warnock, the movie moves along fine. Every time it goes back to Hawke and Irons, the movie slows down because the present storyline isn't the compelling part.

A wondrous journey into a dark and troubled mind. Jeremy Irons is in his prime acting form here, as a teacher. Here he tries to enlighten his students with brooding flashbacks of his troubled teen life. The director also allows the students to interact with the flashbacks creating a dreamy, wondrous gloss over some very disturbing imagery. If you loved the Cell and Seven than this may have been one you missed. A must see.

Jeremy Irons, everybody's favorite morose Englishman, plays a high school teacher who basically has a nervous breakdown (more like a meltdown) in class; and over the course of several class sessions, tells his pupils his own life story, growing up in rural England in the post-war years. This includes his high school sweetheart, to whom he is married, and his mentally retarded older brother.

The movie consistently takes turns for the weird. The teacher's wife has a habit of snatching unattended babies and bringing them home; we learn that she is unable to have children, but the reason for this is not revealed until a climactic scene that some viewers may find very difficult and painful to watch.

The teacher actually brings his students, physically, into the setting of the story at one point ... there they are, walking around, looking at things... a class field trip into the teacher's past. A very young Ethan Hawke plays a troublesome student who connects with Jereme's character by the end of the story.

Most of the surrealistic elements work well, others are just ... odd. For example, at one point, Jeremy Irons' character pauses in the middle of his narrative, because one of his female students who is sitting at a desk in the classroom is completely naked. Okay ... maybe there was supposed to be some kind of symbolism behind this image, but it seemed a little gratuitous.

Overall, I'd have to give it **** of *****.

Wanted to see 'Waterland' for a number of reasons. My main reasons were the superb source material by Graham Swift, a haunting and poignant book with a point, and due to being a fan of Jeremy Irons (in a quest to see more of his work other than what has been seen already). Also hold his real life wife Sinead Cusack in very high regard and have always wished she was in more films. Very interesting subject too.

Found 'Waterland' to be a good and interesting film, but could have been even better than it was. It showcased very well Irons, Cusack, Lena Headey and Ethan Hawke in early appearances and composer Carter Burwell. As an adaptation, it is very well intended and doesn't disgrace the source material. But part of me felt like there could have been more depth to the characters and the story, both richer than what is seen in the film. On its own terms and judging it as a standalone, 'Waterland' does have a good deal to recommend.

Starting with what could have been done better in 'Waterland', although it is one of those stories where a deliberate pace is necessary there are times when the story is not as eventful where the pace felt too deliberate. Mentioned above about aspects of 'Waterland' that could have gone into more depth, a prime example would be the ending which did come over as rather vague.

The film is at its least interesting in the classroom scenes, not Tom's dialogue and certainly not how Irons delivers it. It was the dialogue of the students and how they reacted to some of what they were being taught, those moments were very awkwardly written and even unintentionally funny. The waste of the great Pete Postlethwaite, given far too little to do, is criminal.

However, 'Waterland' is held together beautifully by the acting. Irons is understated yet very sincere in the lead role and even little things like how he uses those melancholic eyes tell so much, back when he was in roles that played to his strengths and showed how great an actor he actually is. He shares an intensely touching chemistry with a very heartfelt Cusack, making one feel why they haven't done more projects together and it should be strongly considered in the future. Hawke, Headey and Grant Warnock are particularly good of the rest of the cast, a good thing too as other than Irons and Cusack they have the most to do.

It's filmed in a hauntingly beautiful way too, complementing the picturesque yet sometimes foreboding scenery perfectly. Burwell's score is perfectly hypnotic and Stephen Gyllenhaal directs sensitively enough. The past and present scenes have a good amount of affecting drama, air of mystery and haunting emotions, especially the past scenes and the latter scenes with Cusack. The back and forth between timelines is at least coherent and doesn't come over as jerky or disjointed, dangers with back and forths in films and have been fallen into. The dialogue is generally thoughtful, Irons delivers his final speech with a lot of poignancy and truth.

Overall, had its faults but still a well done film. 7/10

Here is one of the best films of the 1990s. I remember the first time I saw it, I wasn't too sure what to think. I've seen it countless times in the last six or so years, since that first viewing. I am completely in awe every time I watch it. In awe of the way Jeremy Irons conveys sadness better than any actor working today. In awe of the hypnotic score, the sense of mysterious longing it evokes. In awe of everything here...

I swear this film breaks my heart every time I see it.