The Whistleblower
Drama
Director: Larysa Kondracki
Cast: Rachel Weisz, Monica Bellucci, Vanessa Redgrave, David Strathairn, Roxana Condurache
Rating: 3 (out of 5)
Rachel Weisz possesses this rare quality — she is beautiful without being distractingly gorgeous, the latter being a liability that sometimes prevents actresses from comfortably slipping into the skin of plain-Jane characters. In The Whistleblower, Weisz plays Kathryn Bolkovac, a police officer so dedicated to her job that she loses a husband as well as custody of her teenaged daughter over it. Apart from delivering a powerhouse performance, she also does a credible job of never letting us think of her as a gorgeous movie star.
Not only is she the best thing about Kondracki’s debut feature, but Weisz is also pretty much the only reason The Whistleblower doesn’t turn into a morbid docu-feature. The story, based on actual events involving human trafficking in war-torn Bosnia circa 1999, is extremely compelling. However, the film is emotionally distant, possessing a stubborn reluctance to delve into the emotions and motivations of all its characters. Weisz’s Kathryn, who takes it upon herself to be the eponymous whistleblower, adds a much-needed touch of humanism to this film.
In terms of subject matter, this film reminded me of the underrated Fair Game, starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, which released earlier this year. Watts played a role very similar to what Weisz has done here, and the two performances are comparable in their intensities and overall effectiveness. An Oscar nomination would be well deserved.
There is also a powerful ensemble cast of veteran actresses lending wonderful support here, from Vanessa Redgrave’s dignified portrayal of Madeleine Rees, a hapless UN official, to Roxana Condurache’s heartbreakingly good performance as Raya, a Ukranian teenage girl who becomes Kathryn’s reason to stay in Bosnia. Uprooted from her family, Kathryn’s motivations are clear — she sees in Raya her own daughter, and will do anything in her power to protect her.
Unfortunately, the script, written by Eilis Kirwan and Kondracki herself, doesn’t try and explain the motivations of the perpetrators of the crime (which apparently involves everyone from UN peacekeeping forces to high-ranking diplomats) apart from a throwaway line (“They’re whores of war”). This is just my opinion, but it’s always better when there is at least an attempt to deconstruct evil rather than just painting it all with the same shade of black.
This is not a film that entertains and allows you to slip back into your comfortable reclining multiplex chair while you dig into a large tub of popcorn. The Whistleblower is well paced, but frequently difficult to watch because of the graphic violence that is depicted. It packs a visceral wallop, but ultimately, one is left wishing Kondracki could’ve gone the distance and bundled an emotional wallop along with that as well.

Source: MiD-DAY.com

Fernando Meirelles loves working with Rachel Weisz on movies because she is a great improviser.
Rachel Weisz questioned “every single word” of the script for 360.
The British actress stars alongside Jude Law and Sir Anthony Hopkins in the film about the inter-twining lives of people all over the world, and director Fernando Meirelles admitted he loves working with Rachel – who previously starred in his movie The Constant Gardner – because she loves improvising in rehearsals.
Speaking at the European premiere of the film – which also opened the 55th London Film Festival – at the Odeon Cinema on Leicester Square last night, Fernando exclusively told BANG Showbiz: “I love to work with Rachel because she loves to improvise and I love to improvise too.
“We don’t improvise with the camera rolling, it’s more when we prepare, so she brings ideas, she brings lines. Every single word she thinks about and she questions, so she makes me think. I’m quite sure we are going to work together again.”
Fernando also confessed the stars of the film, which is set in locations including London, Vienna, Bratislava and Phoenix, did not get paid much for their participation, but wanted to take part because they “loved” the script.
He added: “Because we were only shooting five or six days with each actor, it’s easier for them to find a slot to shoot the film. And they’ve all done it because they liked the script, because they didn’t get very well paid to be honest. We all did it for love, not for the pay cheque, I can assure you that. But it’s great, when you have the whole crew involved because they want to shoot the film, not because they’re just making money it’s a different mood. It’s a wonderful experience.”

Source: Contactmusic

Actress Rachel Weisz talks about her time spent on the set of Dream House, a new horror film also starring husband Daniel Craig, reports the Inquisitr. “It’s very romantic and just unusual. I’ve never read anything that quite had the same tone of romance and the supernatural and horror and it’s a love story as well,” said the 41-year-old actress. Dream House tells the story of a family whose new home becomes their worst nightmare. Writer Will Atenton (Craig) and his wife Libby (Weisz) move their family to New England so that Will can focus on writing a new novel. Shortly after moving into their new home, the family discovers that a woman and her two daughters were murdered in the house and everyone believes the father was the killer. Now the killer is after Atenton’s family and he must solve the mystery surrounding the murder in order to protect those he loves.“I play Libby, Will Atenton’s wife,” said Weisz, “I’m in the suburbs, which is not somewhere I fit into comfortably, but my husband’s bought us a big house so I’m happy to be raising the girls there. I think I’m a bit of a fish out of water but actually, my character never has a scene outside of the house — I’m in my ‘dream house’ the whole time.” Craig and Weisz became involved in a relationship while working on the film together and were married earlier this year. The film debuted in theaters on Sept. 30 and was directed by six-time Oscar nominated director Jim Sheridan.

Source: ThirdAge.com

In horror drama Dream House, English actress Rachel Weisz stars alongside Daniel Craig to play wife and husband respectively whose dream of a perfect home goes up in smoke after discovering its horrific evil past.
Below, Weisz discusses her new role.
Tell us about your character.
I play Libby. I’m married to Will (Daniel Craig). We have two beautiful little girls. When the movie begins we’ve just recently moved to the suburbs — into our dream house. I am an artist and I spend most of my time painting the walls and doing home improvements.
What’s Will’s life like at the start of the film?
Will has been a publisher at a very high-end Manhattan publishing company. He’s basically a workaholic and that’s how he has become so successful. He’s worked incredibly hard, but decided to quit his job and spend more time with his family and fulfil his dream of writing a novel.
Tell us a little about where you moved to.
We moved to a suburb outside Manhattan and in the kind of place that in England we’d call the commuter belt. I don’t know if you say that in America but you know it’s that kind of 40-minute train ride from Manhattan. Before the move, we lived in a little apartment in New York but we sold it and bought a proper family house in the suburbs.

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EDIT: I added another interview. Click here to read it!

It’s always a bad sign when a studio fails to screen a movie for critics in advance of its release. But how bad could a film starring the likes of Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Naomi Watts, and directed by Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, In America, Brothers) really be? Well, when critics finally had a chance to view the horror movie Dream House in theaters over the weekend, they agreed almost unanimously — it’s pretty horrible. Who’s responsible? Numerous reports prior to the movie’s release indicated that Sheridan and the producers clashed over the final cut after test audiences panned it — and that Sheridan lost. Nevertheless, it’s his name in the credits and many critics direct much of their scathing assessment of the movie at him. “Sheridan’s pacing is turgid and mournful, which lends the story … an air of ponderousness,” comments Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News . “What on earth was he thinking?” asks Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times , who describes Dream House as “a haunted-house tale of gobsmacking foolishness.” “Sheridan can’t ever quite get hold of the tone,” remarks Mark Olsen in the Los Angeles Times . And Stephen Whitty comments in the Newark Star Ledger , “There is something sad buried deep in Dream House , something puzzling and scary and maybe even dead. Unfortunately, it might be Jim Sheridan’s career.”

Source: Contactmusic

Rachel Weisz heads to her trailer after a day of filming The Bourne Legacy on Tuesday (September 27) in Queens, New York. The 41-year-old actress was joined at the studios by her co-star Jeremy Renner, who took a break from shooting to walk his pup. Rachel made a quick outfit change before leaving the set.
The Bourne Legacy, set to be released in August 2012, also stars Edward Norton, Albert Finney, and Joan Allen.

Source: JustJared.com