The Weight of Water is a 2000 psychological thriller film[3][4] directed by Kathryn Bigelow, and starring Catherine McCormack, Sean Penn, Elizabeth Hurley, Josh Lucas, Vinessa Shaw, Katrin Cartlidge, Ciarán Hinds, and Sarah Polley.

Based on Anita Shreve's 1997 novel of the same name, it follows a newspaper photographer who, while researching the murders of two Norwegian immigrants that occurred in the Isles of Shoals in 1873, finds her own life paralleling that of a witness to the crime.

In the present, newspaper photographer Jean Janes begins researching the murders, and travels to Smuttynose with her husband Thomas, an award-winning poet.

In a twist of fate, Jean discovers archived papers apparently written by Maren Hontvedt, which give an account of her life on the island and the events leading up to the murders.

The plot unfolds the narrative of the papers and Hontvedt's testimony against Wagner, while Jean privately struggles with jealousy as Adaline openly flirts with Thomas.

Trying to suppress her fears of Adaline as a rival, Jean learns that Maren was brought from Norway to Smuttynose by her husband John, a man form whom she has no passion.

On the day of the murders, Evan and John depart the island to acquire goods in Portsmouth, after which Anethe reveals to Maren and Karen that she is pregnant.

[6] Like in the film, Shreve's source novel partly retells a semi-fictionalized account of the 1873 double murders of two Norwegian immigrants, a crime for which Louis Wagner was ultimately charged and executed.

[11][12] Though set on Smuttynose Island in the Isles of Shoals of the coasts of New Hampshire and Maine, principal photography of The Weight of Water largely took place in and around Halifax, Nova Scotia[13][14] on a budget of $16 million.

[28] The Weight of Water was a box-office bomb, earning $45,888 during its premiere weekend in the United States at 27 theaters,[2][29] opening alongside I Spy and The Santa Clause 2.

[33] A number of critics felt that the film, which tells a modern fictionalized story parallel to a historical true crime narrative, lacked substance in the former.

[ii] Several critics, including Roger Ebert and Lisa Schwarzbaum, also compared it to Neil LaBute's Possesssion (2002), a film with a similar structure released the same year.

[36][37] Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote: "There is so much to admire in The Weight of Water, Kathryn Bigelow's churning screen adaptation of a novel by Anita Shreve, that when the movie finally collapses on itself late in the game, it leaves you in the frustrating position of having to pick up its scattered pieces and assemble them as best you can".

Club made similar criticisms of the divided narrative, concluding: "Bigelow struggles to recast herself as a visual poet, but her deeply pretentious reverie never comes close to cohering.

[39] Schwarzbaum, writing for Entertainment Weekly, also felt that the film's contemporary characters and their respective performers were lacking, creating a "sogginess" at odds with the period story.

"[42] Salon's Stephanie Zacharek conceded that the film "might not come together as cleanly as it should," but uniformly praised the performances and Bigelow's direction, writing that she "casts a mood of dread over the picture like a velvet net.

Nonlinear storytelling is always tricky, but added to the unconventional narrative is that fact that it’s also told in multiple time frames and periods—there are flashbacks within flashbacks—and from two different perspectives.