Dream House

If I were asked to quickly name my three favorite contemporary actors it's very possible that I would come up with Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, and Naomi Watts. These three, of course, are cast members in Dream House, the Jim Sheridan film that came out to god-awful reviews last year. And there are stretches (long stretches, really) of this particular film that are truly god-awful, like, for example, the last twenty minutes.

That said, it's possible to sort through the wreckage of this film and see that at one point there was a genuine and interesting movie here. And Daniel Craig gives what I think is a truly brilliant performance as a wrecked man. There are a couple of sequences, one in a psychiatric hospital, and one with Rachel Weisz involving their two small children, that in a different movie would garner Craig an academy award. He's that good.

Then just when you think the film is going to keep going in this particular direction, it turns into a clumsy hackneyed thriller. Watching it, it seemed pretty clear to me that something had gone wrong with this movie: that someone wrested control away from someone else. IMDB confirmed this: apparently Sheridan, Craig and Weisz all refused to do press for this film because the Morgan Creek producers had re-cut the film against Sheridan's wishes.

Hey, as Daniel Craig said, "The movie didn't turn out great. But I met my wife. Fair trade."