Waterland is a 1992 film directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal

Stephen Gyllenhaal

-Personal life:Gyllenhaal was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Virginia Lowrie and Hugh Anders Gyllenhaal. The Gyllenhaal family is a descendant of the cavalry officer Nils Gunnesson Haal, who was ennobled in 1652 when Queen Christina of Sweden conferred upon him the crest and family name,...

, based on the 1983 novel of the same name

Waterland (novel)

Waterland is a 1983 novel by Graham Swift. It is considered to be the author's premier novel and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize .In 1992, the book was made into a film version....

 by Graham Swift

Graham Swift

Graham Colin Swift FRSL is a British author. He was born in London, England and educated at Dulwich College, London, Queens' College, Cambridge, and later the University of York. He was a friend of Ted Hughes...

. The film starred Jeremy Irons

Jeremy Irons

Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...

, Sinéad Cusack

Sinéad Cusack

Sinéad Moira Cusack is an Irish stage, television and film actress. She has received two Tony Award nominations: once for Best Leading Actress in Much Ado About Nothing , and again for Best Featured Actress in Rock 'n' Roll .-Background:...

, Ethan Hawke

Ethan Hawke

Ethan Green Hawke is an American actor, writer and director. He made his feature film debut in 1985 with the science fiction movie Explorers, before making a supporting appearance in the 1989 drama Dead Poets Society which is considered his breakthrough role...

, and John Heard.

Plot

Waterland follows the story of a mentally anguished high school history teacher (Irons) going through a complete reassessment of his life. His method for reassessing his life is to narrate it to his class and interweave in it three generations of his family's history. The movie portrays the teacher's narrative in the form of flashbacks to tell the story of a teenage boy and his mentally challenged older brother living on the fens of England with their widowed father. The entire movie is motivated by an opening scene in which the history teacher's barren wife (Cusack) steals a child from a supermarket and believes it to be hers. The teacher explains to his class how he and his wife carried out a teenage romance which led to a disastrous abortion that mutilated the girl's womb and left her infertile. The teacher is tortured by the guilt of this act as well as the jealousy he demonstrated to his older brother when he suspected his girlfriend's child was that of his brother. The girlfriend explains that the child cannot be that of the mentally challenged brother because his penis was of such enormousness that it could not fit into her despite several attempts. The girlfriend's flirtation with the older brother sets off events that lead to the older brother's suicide by drowning. A side-theme throughout the narration is of the teacher's grandfather, who was a successful brewer and who fathered with his daughter the narrator's older brother, thus accounting for the older brother's genetic difficulties. The movie ends with the teacher's dismissal from his school and a possible renewal of his relationship with his wife.

Cast

• Jeremy Irons
  Jeremy Irons
  Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...
  
   – Tom Crick
• Sinéad Cusack
  Sinéad Cusack
  Sinéad Moira Cusack is an Irish stage, television and film actress. She has received two Tony Award nominations: once for Best Leading Actress in Much Ado About Nothing , and again for Best Featured Actress in Rock 'n' Roll .-Background:...
  
   – Mary Crick
• Ethan Hawke
  Ethan Hawke
  Ethan Green Hawke is an American actor, writer and director. He made his feature film debut in 1985 with the science fiction movie Explorers, before making a supporting appearance in the 1989 drama Dead Poets Society which is considered his breakthrough role...
  
   – Matthew Price
• John Heard - Lewis Scott
• Grant Warnock - Young Tom
• Lena Headey
  Lena Headey
  Lena Headey is an English actress. Headey's performance in a one-off show when she was 17 caught the attention of a casting agent, who took a photo and asked her to audition and eventually she got a supporting role alongside Jeremy Irons and Ethan Hawke in the 1992 British drama film Waterland and...
  
   – Young Mary
• Pete Postlethwaite
  Pete Postlethwaite
  Peter William "Pete" Postlethwaite, OBE, was an English stage, film and television actor.After minor television appearances including in The Professionals, Postlethwaite's first success came with the film Distant Voices, Still Lives in 1988. He played a mysterious lawyer, Mr...
  
   – Henry Crick
• Cara Buono
  Cara Buono
  Cara Buono is an American actress, screenwriter and director, probably best known for her role as Dr. Faye Miller in the fourth season of the AMC drama series Mad Men.-Early life:...
  
   – Judy Dobson
• David Morrissey
  David Morrissey
  David Mark Morrissey is an English actor and director. Morrissey grew up in the Kensington and Knotty Ash areas of Liverpool, and learned to act at the city's Everyman Youth Theatre. At the age of 18, he was cast in the television series One Summer , which won him recognition throughout the country...
  
   – Dick Crick
• Maggie Gyllenhall - Student