It seems that actress Jennifer Connelly has real estate on her mind when choosing the movies she wants to make. First she did THE HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG, the story of a recovering alcoholic whose home is mistakenly seized by the county and sold for back taxes.
And now DARK WATER, a horror film about a woman who is forced to move to Roosevelt Island (not Brooklyn, thank God) because, gasp, she’s been priced out of Manhattan. In her review in Friday’s New York Times, Manohola Dargis writes:
After she separates from her husband, Kyle (Dougray Scott),
who tends to call her "crazy" at every opportunity, Dahlia (Jennifer
Connelly) confronts one of the most brutal truths to face many a New
Yorker: she can’t afford to live in Manhattan. (The more pragmatic
Kyle, meanwhile, has moved to Jersey City.) Bravely steeling herself
against this calamity, she takes her daughter, Ceci (Ariel Gade), by
the hand and hops a tram to Roosevelt Island. As they glide above the
island’s hulking towers and grim-faced hoi polloi, rain falling like
tears, Ceci cries out, "Mommy, that’s not the city!"
Now, I got a lot of grief for my previous posts about Jennifer Connelly, so I’m not going there again. Besides, I’m changing my tune about Jennifer Connelly, a highly intelligent actress who is also extremely beautiful. Plus, she’s a neighbor and it’s fun to have a celebrity like her around. I’ve heard from OTBKB readers that she and Paul frequent the Third Street Playground, ride bicycles in the park, go to Little Things, ride the subway, and take their kids to school at St. Ann’s as often as they can.
In other words, she’s Park Slope cool.
That she said a thing or two about feeling like a loser for living in Park Slope, where she grew up, is an old, old story. B-O-R-I-N-G. The truth is, many people feel loser-ish if they don’t move away from their hometown, whether they be from a small town in Idaho or Park Slope, Brooklyn.
In some ways, Jennifer Connelly is so much like us. Like every other New Yorker, she is obsessed with real estate. In interviews, Connelly often tells her own real estate horror stories. We may know more about Connelly’s apartment history than any other actress in history. In recent interviews in
Time Out New York and New York, she’s been happy to reel off battle stories
from the Manhattan apartment wars like this one: