A Casa dos Sonhos

Will Atenton moves into a dream home with his lovely wife and two precious children. Weird things start to happen and the family discovers an ugly secret about their house. Neighbors are acting strange, the local police are no help, and investigating the house's history begins to unravel the family, and gives way to other supernatural dimensions.

This movie could have been a terrific ghost story in the vein of Shutter Island, The Others, or The Sixth Sense. Instead it loses focus and turns left into a formulaic and somewhat random "whodunnit". More like "who cares?". About halfway through it got boring and stupid and illogical. What a waste of Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, and a totally underused Naomi Watts. Recut and re-release it. There's a really good movie in there somewhere.

I was certainly interested in seeing "Dream House," since I just got back from seeing this couple in "Betrayal." Let me tell you, from a strictly visual point of view, both of them are gorgeous, not to mention both wonderful actors on stage and on screen.

I gather from reading a few reviews that this film suffers from the director having the final cut taken from him, a bad trailer, and being incorrectly advertised.

I had never heard of it until I rented it. It's a thriller about a man named Will Attenton (Craig) who quits his job in order to spend time with his wife (Weisz) and two daughters. They have bought a place away from the city, but they didn't know that three of the previous four inhabitants of the house had been murdered by the husband and father.

After some strange happenings, Will tries to find out what happened, which includes going to the institution where the father, Peter Ward, was sent after the murders. He was incapable of standing trial. What Will finds out is a huge shock.

I actually liked this film, and I would have liked to have seen the director's cut, since apparently the actors were all up in arms about Jim Sheridan not being permitted to do what he wanted with the final product.

I think for that reason, it's a tad confusing, nothing that a second viewing wouldn't solve. It's not as bad as it's been reviewed to be, and I think one poster was right - people were expecting a horror film and were disappointed.

Well, I will never be disappointed about not seeing a horror film. And I'm a sucker for Daniel Craig.

In New York, the successful editor Will Atenton (Daniel Craig) quits his job in the GPH Publishers to move to the suburb New Ashford and dedicate more time to his beloved wife Libby (Rachel Weisz) and his daughters Trish (Taylor Geare) and DeeDee (Claire Geare) and to start writing a novel.

The family is frightened by a stranger watching them through the window and Will decides to investigate and finds teenagers in a satanic cult in his basement. Sooner he discovers that the family man Peter Ward killed his wife and his two daughters in that house five years ago. Will goes to the police but the officers do not give attention to him. He also learns that Peter Ward spent five years in the Greenhaven Psychiatric Hospital but was recently discharged.

Will tries to get more information about the murder with his neighbor on the other side of the street, the divorced Ann Patterson (Naomi Watts), but she refuses to give any information to him. Will decides to go to Greenhaven to get information about Peter Ward and he discloses a dark secret about the former intern that will affect his life in his dream house.

"Dream House" is a good mystery that deserved a better screenplay. The story has a great potential and a surprising plot point but does not develop well important characters and situations after the revelation of the mystery. Usually this type of twist happens in the end, like in "The Others", or "Ghost", or "Identity", or "The Sixty Sense". In "Dream House', the mystery is disclosed too early and the last twist is very weak and predictable. But anyway I liked this film.

Daniel Craig is one of my favorite contemporary actors and Rachel Weisz is impressively gorgeous. Naomi Watts is effective, as usual, and the relationship of Ann with her husband deserved a better development. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Casa dos Sonhos" ("The Dream House")

Note: On 31 March 2012, I saw this film again on Blu-Ray.

The previews and commercials for Dream House led one to believe it was a horror film, it is not, not at all. I think that is where a lot of the disappointment is coming from. It is a pretty good thriller, once you get used to the fact that that is what you are watching. The storyline, basically that horrible things have happened and we the audience have to figure it out along with the main character, is not the tired thriller standard, or at least the details are different enough to not seem tired. It's actually intriguing and the answer to the mystery is not obvious miles out, even if the climax sort of is. The acting is really quite good too. People who like mystery thrillers should enjoy the film, fans of scary movies will mostly not like it.

Editor and author Will Atenton (Daniel Craig) quits a high power job in Manhattan to relocate with his wife, Libby (Rachel Weisz), and two girls to a quaint New England town. However, as they settle into their new life, they discover that their house was the murder scene of a mother and her two children. Will tries to befriend his neighbour Ann Patterson (Naomi Watts) and find out from her what happened but she is not too eager to talk.

Meanwhile, Will's younger daughter starts seeing someone lurking outside the window at night. As Will pieces together the haunting puzzle, he must find out who murdered the family in his dream house before the culprit returns to kill again.

"Dream House" is not a suspense thriller that will jolt you with sudden loud music and cheap scares. Instead, it plays games with your mind, keeping you guessing about what's happening and making you sort out the plot yourself. Now, if you like your thrillers done this way, then go for it. If not, this one is going to be a nightmare...

Director Jim Sheridan's plot build-up is almost by-the-book and he makes no apology for it. The opening scenes show Will as a devoted father and loving husband. At first, his daughter's visions of a shadowy figure are dismissed quietly, but when Will gets physical evidence of someone lurking around, our curiosity heightens. Sheridan, who gave us "My Left Foot" and "In The Name of The Father", is not delivering this thriller to his audience in a platter. He just dishes out the cards and lets his audience sort them out - at least until the closing sequences.

At first, it feels rather weird to see beefcake Craig as a domesticated guy. However, there is a good chemistry between he and Weisz who also lends a loving and tender touch to the proceedings. The kids, played by Claire and Taylor Geare, are also convincing and adorable. It would have been great to see more of Naomi Watts but her role is rather limited - and she acquits herself professionally. Fans of Rachel G. Fox, the Scarvo girl in TV's Desperate Housewives, will find her in a cameo as Ann's daughter Chloe. All in all, a thriller for the thinking viewer.