Starring: Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, Marton Csokas
Director: Jim Sheridan
Will Atenten (Daniel Craig) is a successful businessman who, when we first see him, is wrapping up his last day on the job to spend more time with his wife Libby (played by real life spouse Rachel Weisz) and his two gorgeous daughters. The Atenten family have just moved into a new house and are looking forward to having Will around more often as he begins a new venture as a novelist and his wife begins to transform their house through renovation.
SPOILERS AHEAD
But their idyllic life of renovating and writing is soon shattered by a mysterious figure who appears to be watching the house at all times, peering in through windows and leaving footprints outside the house in the dark of night.
Will decides to get to the bottom of it and after disturbing a group of teenagers in his basement one night, he soon discovers the truth about the house he and his family are now living in.
He begins to question the neighbours about what happened and ends up on the doorstep of Ann Patterson (Naomi Watts) who lives across the road with her daughter. Will learns that the man that lived in the house murdered his wife and children 5 years previously and now he thinks his family have become his next target.
Will tried to trace the steps of the murderer, Peter Ward, by going to the psychiatric institution where Peter has been living for the last 5 years, but this is where we find out that Will and Peter are one in the same and that the fantasy life he has been living, is all in his head.
He still swears that he did not kill his family and goes back to the house to try and find any clues that may have been left behind, but his family continue to drag him back into the fantasy life and he switches from reality to fantasy on a regular basis.
But someone is watching him and trying to stop him at every turn.
I won't spoil the ending for you, but my overall opinion of the movie was that it was a Hallmark version of Shutter Island with fewer twists.
Daniel Craig was good as the grieving supposed psychopath, but I feel Naomi Watts was mis-cast and very flat. Rachel Weisz was ok, but I find she is one of those actresses that only ever really plays one role.
Give it a go if there is nothing else to rent one night, but it's just a generic thriller with fewer thrills than want.
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