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Waterland (film)
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Wikipedia article
'Waterland' is a 1992 British mystery drama film directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal and starring Jeremy Irons, Sinad Cusack, Ethan Hawke and John Heard. It is based on Graham Swift's 1983 novel of the same name.
The film moved the contemporary location from England to Pittsburgh and eliminated many of the extensive historical asides.
Plot
The film follows the story of an anguished English-born Pittsburgh high school teacher (Irons) in 1974 going through a reassessment of his life. His method is to narrate his life to his class and interweave three generations of his family's history. The film portrays the history teacher's narrative in the form of flashbacks to tell the story of a teenage boy and his mentally challenged older brother living in The Fens of England with their widowed father. In an opening scene the teacher's childless wife (Cusack) takes a child from a supermarket and believes it to be hers. The teacher explains to his class how he and his wife had a teenage romance which led to a disastrous abortion that left her infertile. The teacher is tortured by the guilt of this as well as the jealousy he demonstrated to his older brother when he suspected his girlfriend's child was his brother's. The girl's flirtation with the older brother sets off events that lead to the older boy's death by drowning. A side-theme is the teacher's grandfather, who was a successful brewer and who fathered with his daughter the narrator's older brother. The film ends with the teacher's dismissal from his school and a possible renewal of his relationship with his wife.
Cast
* Jeremy Irons Tom Crick
* Sinad Cusack Mary Crick
* Ethan Hawke Matthew Price
* John Heard - Lewis Scott
* Grant Warnock - Young Tom
* Lena Headey Young Mary
* Pete Postlethwaite Henry Crick
* Cara Buono Judy Dobson
* David Morrissey Dick Crick
* Maggie Gyllenhaal - Maggie Ruth
Production
The film was one of the first two co-productions by Fine Line Features, a subsidiary of New Line Cinema.
The film was shot in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as well as parts of the UK including East Anglia, London and at Twickenham Film Studios. Part of the film was filmed at Doddington Place Gardens, near Faversham. The Victorian mansion was used as the ancestral home to Tom Crick.
References
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