DREAM HOUSE

US, 2011, 92 minutes, Colour.
Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, Marton Csokas, Elias Koteas, Jane Alexander.
Directed by Jim Sheridan.

Dream House is an ironic title for a film which is about ghosts, experiences of guilt leading to madness, and the solution of a murder mystery.
It was not successful on release, the director, Jim Sheridan, complaining that the production company had taken over his film, re-cut it in order to make it more of a horror film for a Halloween celebration audience rather than as a serious ghost story. It received little release in cinemas and was not successful.
Director Jim Sheridan had made his mark in Ireland with such films as My Left Foot, The Field, In the Name of the Father, The Boxer. In the United States he made such films as In America. The film also has a very strong cast, unexpected for this kind of story. The central couple is played by Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz who met on the set and married. Naomi Watts also appears as a neighbour with Marton Csokas as her violent husband. Elias Koteas appears as a mysterious stranger.
For the first half of the film, it seems that the happy family like their dream house even though there are some indications of disturbance. In the second half, the audience realises that most of the action takes place in the mind of Daniel Craig who has taken on an alternate identity in order to avoid reflection on what has happened to him and his family. When he returns, he receives some help from his neighbour, Naomi Watts, and is involved in a struggle which reveals that the killer went to the wrong house and that Naomi Watts was the intended target and that Craig’s time in the institution and the accusation of murder were false. A supporting cast includes Jane Alexander as a psychiatrist.
If audiences take it for its more modest intentions, it emerges as an interesting ghost film as well as the solving of the mystery.

1. An entertaining ghost story? Haunted House? Murder mystery? Madness?
2. The dissatisfaction of the director, the produces re-cut? Box office failure? But audience entertainment?
3. A strong cast and the career of the director?
4. The focus on Will, Daniel Craig’s presence, his work at the office, resigning, the party and the celebration, the farewell from the editor? On the train going home, the mysterious train journey him? Will his meeting the estate agent, her offering a lift, his refusal? Going home?
5. The home, the dream home for the family? Elizabeth, her love for Will, their ease in this together? Two girls? His retirement and everything seeming perfect?
6. Suggestions of disturbance, the little girl seeing the face at the window, Will’s search, the reflection in the window?
7. Ann Patterson, looking at Will, his not recognising her? The scenes with her husband, his violence and suspicions? Ann bringing the food over for the family? The discussion? Elizabeth’s reaction? Ann not going into the house?
8. Will, his dreams, his nightmares? An alternate life? The name of Peter Ward? The newspaper articles? His going to the institution, seeing the psychiatrist?
9. Audience response, the psychiatrist being the woman who farewelled him from the office? Her explanation of the situation? Peter, the death of his family, the accusations that he killed them? His being freed for lack of evidence? The five years anniversary?
10. Peter, moving in and out of his imagination? The realization that all the scenes with his family were imagined and memory? His being disturbed, trying to understand the truth?
11. Ann’s husband, acting suspiciously, violent, his meeting with the stranger? Going into the house? Attacking Peter? The ghosts and their presence and sustaining him?
12. The realisation that Ann was the real target, her husband wanting her killed, the stranger going to the wrong house, his shooting the family, Elizabeth and her firing the shot, wounding Peter? Ann’s husband and his shooting the killer? Issues of money and insurance?
13. Peter, wounded, Ann helping him? The realisation of what had happened? But Elizabeth in his imagination, her letting him go?
14. The intricacies of the plot, memory, imagination and fantasy? The facts of the case, the attempted killing, the villains? What future for Peter? His walking along the street and seeing his book in the shop window?