| Waterland | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Stephen Gyllenhaal |
| Produced by | Patrick Cassavetti Katy Mcguinness |
| Written by | Graham Swift (novel) Peter Prince (screenplay) |
| Starring | Jeremy Irons Sinéad Cusack Ethan Hawke John Heard |
| Music by | Carter Burwell |
| Cinematography | Robert Elswit |
| Editing by | Lesley Walker |
| Studio | British Screen Productions Channel Four Films Palace Pictures Pandora Cinema |
| Distributed by | Fine Line Features |
| Release date(s) | August 21, 1992 (UK) September 12, 1992 (TIFF) October 30, 1992 (USA) |
| Running time | 95 minutes |
| Country | United States United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1,100,218[1] |
Waterland is a 1992 film directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal, based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Graham Swift. The film starred Jeremy Irons, Sinéad Cusack, Ethan Hawke, and John Heard.
Contents |
Waterland follows the story of a mentally anguished high school history teacher (Irons) going through a complete reassessment of his life. His method for reassessing his life is to narrate it to his class and interweave in it three generations of his family's history. The movie portrays the teacher's narrative in the form of flashbacks to tell the story of a teenage boy and his mentally challenged older brother living on the fens of England with their widowed father. The entire movie is motivated by an opening scene in which the history teacher's barren wife (Cusack) steals a child from a supermarket and believes it to be hers. The teacher explains to his class how he and his wife carried out a teenage romance which led to a disastrous abortion that mutilated the girl's womb and left her infertile. The teacher is tortured by the guilt of this act as well as the jealousy he demonstrated to his older brother when he suspected his girlfriend's child was that of his brother. The girlfriend explains that the child cannot be that of the mentally challenged brother because his penis was of such enormousness that it could not fit into her despite several attempts. The girlfriend's flirtation with the older brother sets off events that lead to the older brother's suicide by drowning. A side-theme throughout the narration is of the teacher's grandfather, who was a successful brewer and who fathered with his daughter the narrator's older brother, thus accounting for the older brother's genetic difficulties. The movie ends with the teacher's dismissal from his school and a possible renewal of his relationship with his wife.
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