DARK HARBOR

released on DVD 11 April, 2000

You know,
I look at you
and it’s funny, you don’t remind me of myself exactly
but you remind me of a certain time,
I remember what I used to think love was then;
that it was like fireworks, the explosions, the highlights,
but it is not.

It’s time:
to go through the seasons together
through change
through the ups and downs,
to be able to look at your beloved
and say,
"We did that together as one,
we chose each other above all things".
That’s love.
It’s unexplainable.
It’s a secret
that can only be known
once you’ve done
the time.

(and me being married for 25 + years, I say he’s right)

Dark Harbor Reviews

Anne's Review

Reviewed by Anne, 12 September 2000

Overall rating = About a 4.5
In the Rickman scale = The person who gave it a 12 is wrong. It's a 12.5!

An intriguing movie with a plot that will keep you guessing to the last moment. Three compelling characters almost dance their way slowly through, leading the viewer to make guesses about where the plot is going. As with "Sixth Sense," this is a film that makes us want to watch again for the subtle clues we missed the first time.

Alan Rickman as the husband is very appealing, even with his poignant crabbiness caused by communication problems with his wife. The addition of a mysterious, scruffy and innocently seductive young man in the lonely Maine island cottage creates the tension and drives the movie to the end. The two strong males subconsciously spar for the wife in scene after scene, and she has feelings for both of them. Several key scenes are in the kitchen or around a table, with food being a substitute for the passions and jealousy that surround them.

Both the wife and the boy, played by Polly Walker and Norman Reedus, are convincing, and Rickman portrays the building rage of the husband as his wife becomes obsessed with their uninvited house guest. The viewer has the feeling that this could have been a quiet love story if there were only the couple, alone for a solitary weekend getaway on a hauntingly lovely island off the coast of Maine. With the sexy intruder's presence, the question is not IF the characters will explode in passion or even murder, but WHO, HOW and WHEN.

Accents become a bit confused at times, but this is a film that viewers will enjoy more than once. Rickman is refined but passionate, and very, very sexy.

Fausta thanks Anne for her review

Joan’s Review

Reviewed by Joan, 11 October, 2000

I am in total agreement with the reviews that I read with one small thought that may come to light in the future. It often takes several viewings of such a good riveting film to catch all the nuances. This film, the likes of which I have not seen since Hitchcock at his very best. It actually took me by surprise. I being just a tad younger than Rickman myself found his performance in Dark Harbor superb. My 24 year old son took a quite opposite affect to it's ending. He was shocked in a totaly different way. If I explained how I would be censured.

The only scene of two that were symbolic of the characters emotions that I can speak of is as follows. The dive off of the boat in the nude gave me the feeling that Rickman's character had found some sort of inner freedom but I did not clue in at all. I had rented it and now am in the process of buying it so that I can put it with the rest of my collection of Rickman's films to enjoy over and over. The speech that he made to the young stranger as he sat in the living room moved me and I am thrilled that Fausta chose to put it in print on her page. For with a twenty-eight year old marriage of my own I can say that he summed up beautifully in those words penned by the screen writer. We all seem to enjoy his work in so many different genres that it is inspiring.

I am an author and after six months of writers block it has been the inspiration of watching Alan Rickman so steeped in the theatre and good movie character choices as opposed to shoot-em-up westerns and gut wrenching epics that is normally top box office, that has gotten me back to the typewriter. Don't judge me by the simple way in which I express myself here or in my long drawn out sentences. I am merely conveying my thoughts such as they are on one movie that we all enjoyed.

Thank you for your attention Joan

Fausta thanks Joan for her review

Power of Subtle Suggestion

Reviewed by Venida, 7 April, 2000

Overall rating = 4 hands
Rickmanista rating = 4 and a half (due to that very sexy swim at end of the film, which is very bold of a man in his fifties.)
Why not 5? Because there is always room for improvement, or otherwise, we have to believe AR has peaked, and that must never happen, and a sequel is out of the question. Remember, there is still an Alexis to get rid of!! I hope so.

Stormy weather, mist and fog are ideal backdrops to the subtle stories so intricately interwoven in the adult drama, Dark Harbor. David and Alexis Weinberg, a wealthy couple from Boston, are hurrying to catch a ferry to their private island when they find a beaten young man on the side of the road. At the insistence of his wife, Weinberg agrees to help the man, beginning what would become a chain of passion, betrayal and murder that will keep you guessing from beginning to end!

"Dark Harbor" is filled with twists and subplots reminiscent of Hitchcock; the darkness of hidden truths and realities behind the veil of the Weinberg's marriage, will leave you breathless. The plot has a powerful premise, but grows thin at times and I wondered just what was left on the cutting room floor that would have strengthened it ; perhaps more information about David and the boy would have satisfied me. Powerful performances by three exciting actors made up for some of those weakness.

Alan Rickman exposes a range of powerful emotions that will delight fans who wished to see him break out of sugary or manic roles. His after dinner speech with the boy is mesmerizingly tender, and deservedly earns him the title, "The Voice", while Norman Reedus is a force to be reckoned with, clearly focused on getting what he wants in the end. Polly Walker is strangely touching as the wife without a clue of the poison brewing within herself, her husband, and the man they're both attracted and repelled by.

The final ten minutes of the movie is both powerful and, to some, disturbing. But if you watch "Dark Harbor" with an open mind, you, too, will have to wonder what you would or wouldn't do for love.

This review was first posted at Amazon.com.
Fausta thanks Venida for her review

Editor's Comment

Overall rating: 3 1/2 hands

Rickmaniac rating: 12 hands
(the usual Rickmaniac rating limit of 5 hands is much too low for this film)

Being a Rickman fan is mostly an excercise in patience. One waits for years to see a film where Mr. Rickman has the starring role, and then the film doesn't get released in cinemas. In this instance it is doubly taxing since Dark Harbor is very definitely a rickmaniac must-see, in spite of a flaw in the plot (i.e., the plot hinges entirely on the predictability of the wife's actions).

I will not give away any of the plot or details of this film, but encourage you go straight to your nearest video store or retailer on April 11 and get Dark Harbor, and then send me your reviews, please. Dark Harbor has almost every single element that Rickman fans like, but listening to his soliloquy on love (see above), to a background of Bach music, justifies purchasing a DVD player if you don't already own one.
Comment by Fausta, 8 April 2000

For spectacular DVD captures of this film, visit Stezi's Dark Harbor page
J. S. Bach's Orchestral suite #3 in D, BWV.1068, 2. Air; from Classical Midi Files