Review: Dream House

Dream House (Jim Sheridan, 2011- The United States)

Jim Sheridan's career has sure been on a down lately with Get Rich or Die Tryin, the mediocre Brothers, and now the poor Dream House, but his filmography suggests better with The Boxer, My Left Foot, In America, and In the Name of the Father.  To his credit though, Dream House's failure is largely not his fault.  Apparently producer Morgan Creek did not allow him to edit the film and he instead left the project. Sheridan also actively pushed the DGA to remove his name from the film.  Undertstanably, he, nor the stars of the film (Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, or Elias Koteas), promoted the film in the recent weeks before its premeire.  That being said, the film isn't a total failure and it still has many bright spots.

Sheridan was able to create a strong feeling of tension in the first half of the film.  Very little actual occurs and there are no real scary parts of the film.  Yet, I, at the very least, was glued to my seat in anticipation of something to occur.  While nothing ever really does occur, the twist of the film is about halfway through it.  If you had seen the trailer, you know exactly what the twist was.  Maybe without the revealing trailer, the film would be better.  But already, a few days after seeing the movie, the trailer has all but disappeared from my mind, and I am just remembering the film.  The twist though, isn't all original, as its something that Scorsese did much better in Shutter Island.

Even if you can get over the twist, the real flaw of the film is the ending.  Two bad guys are presented in the last ten minutes or so and their character archs are very flat.  I'm pretty sure with better editing, Sheridan would have made this part much better.  Also, there are random parts of the movie which are simliar to The Shining.  The two little girls in the movie are not at all similar to those in The Shining, but there are weird sequences when the girls are shown dead and holding hands with the house crumbling (see the poster for this image).  These sequences do little to the film and are very few.  The film isn't an all out horror film, more of a psychological thriller.  These sequences would have probably been edited about by Sheridan, if he had gotten the chance.


Even if the movie was disavowed by Sheridan, his trademarks show through.  The movie is a family drama and relates to the tensions that build in the family.  The pacing and style are similar to his most recent work in Brothers.  Also, similar to Brothers, the trailer gave away most of that film too.  Maybe he needs better luck, not only with the production companies, but with the material shown in hte trailers.  Importantly, the acting is very strong in the movie too, which allows it to succeed when the editing does not.


Dream House is much better than the 6% on rottentomatoes shows.  It is not a great film and not even a particularly good film, but it is not really a bad film either.  It instead sits in the middle and could have been a much better film if Morgan Creek had let the four time Academy Award nominee and auteur Jim Sheridan fully direct his film.


Grade: C


Here is more on the fall out between Sheridan and Morgan Creek: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2011/10/jim-sheridan-dream-house-rachel-weisz-daniel-craig-reviews.html