‘Dream’ stars deserve better

October 1, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

Whatever its shortcomings, director Jim Sheridan and stars Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Naomi Watts deserved better than the give-away-the-store trailer that Universal delivered for “Dream House.”

But screenwriter David Loucka? Oh yeah, HE deserved a trailer that drops the film’s big reveal on you before you buy your ticket. They would have done us all a favor by hinting at the eye-rolling lulu of a finale he cooked up for this faintly spooky semi-supernatural thriller.

Craig plays Will, a New York book editor who quits his job, rides the train home to his lovely wife (Weisz) and two kids. He’s going to write a book himself, and they’re going to fix up their suburban Connecticut home.

“I feel so safe when you’re here,” she says, reciting a line straight out of Foreshadowing 101 in film school.

“I’m not going to go anywhere,” Will says back, reading from the same textbook.

But first, there’s the matter of what happened to the last family there. The neighbor lady (Watts) is close-mouthed about it. It was bad.

If you’ve seen that trailer, you know what comes next. And that revelation leaves the movie no maneuvering room. So many peripheral characters have stood out in earlier scenes that we know that Elias Koteas and Marton Csokas will have something to do with the solution to this not-that-mysterious mystery. So much is just so ... obvious.

But the actors and their director (“My Left Foot,” “In America”) saw something here, so maybe you try to figure out what that was. Without rolling your eyes.

A happy memory — Craig met Weisz on this movie and they married last winter. And they manage a poignant moment or two, to go along with the film’s two decent chills.

Universal’s best wedding present to the lovebirds would have been to shuttle this one, which they knew was damaged goods, straight to video.