"The Water Man" Is a Adventure Tale Your Family Can, and Should, Watch Together
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"This town is weird," Amos Boone, David Oyelowo's character in The Water Man, says at the start of the movie. Amos, his wife Mary (Rosario Dawson), and son Gunner (Lonnie Chavis) had recently moved to a remote town in Oregon, bordered by a forest. And as countless movies have taught us, remote towns bordered by a forest are where some of the weirdest things do, indeed, happen.
The Water Man, out May 7, is Oyelowo's directorial debut. Produced by Oprah's Harpo Films, the family adventure also functions as a showcase for Chavis's acting. Known for his work as the young version of Randall in This Is Us, Chavis shines as an 11-year-old boy seeking extraordinary means to save his mother, who was diagnosed with
leukemia.
“He is prepared to put himself in harm’s way to do that,” Oyelowo, a father of four, told Deadline of Lonnie's bold movie. “Personally, I find sacrificial love to be the greatest attribute we as human beings have. Anyone who puts themselves on the line for someone else, in my opinion, is a hero. To see that manifest in an 11-year-old boy, for his mother, was just something I found and find very moving.”
On one level, The Water Man is a family-friendly supernatural thriller. Through local lore, Gunner hears about the (alleged) existence of a ghost in the woods who possesses the secret to immortality, and seeks to find him. But with its themes of life and death, The Water Man also creates an opening for families to have conversations around big topics.
It's fitting that The Water Man's two young actors, 13-year-old Lonnie Chavis and 16-year-old Amiah Miller, received rave reviews out of Sundance: The movie speaks to children, without ever speaking down to them.
The Water Man has a spring release date.
Over a year after its debut at the Toronto Film Festival, The Water Man is finally available to see. The Water Man will be in theaters starting May 7. Later this year, Netflix will distribute the film internationally.
The movie's cast has many familiar faces.
David Oyelowo, Rosario Dawson, and Lonnie Chavis star as the Boone family, the movie's central characters. When Oyelowo first received The Water Man's script, the Boones were written as being white. He saw The Water Man as an opportunity to depict a Black family in a different setting.
"What I see a dearth of in movies is seeing Black families where their struggle is not always through the lens of race or economic struggles that they have," the British-born Nigerian actor told Deadline. "I think it is as radical to show a loving Black family going through what we would call "normal issues," as well as racial issues. That was something that I was really happy to showcase."
Some of your notable names pop up in supporting roles. Alfred Molina, Oyelowo's longtime friend, appears as the melancholy funeral director who believes wholeheartedly in the Water Man myth. Maria Bello plays a local sheriff. Finally, Amiah Miller's Jo, who believes she saw the Water Man, teams up with Gunner on his mythological quest.
David Oyelowo wanted to make a movie he could share with his kids.
Oyelowo and his wife, Jessica Oyelowo, share four children together, whose ages range from 9 to 19. Speaking to Deadline, he revealed that he made this movie with them in mind. "I looking for a project that I would be happy to share with my kids, that they would be entertained by, but also have some meaning to them."
Oyelowo reflected that he "never got to see [himself] reflected" in childhood adventure movies like Goonies or Stand By Me, which have predominantly white casts. The Water Man breaks with that tradition. "What I want to do is to create art that my kids see themselves reflected in because I think that is also radical, and it also affirms your existence, the fact that you can see yourself reflected as the protagonist, or in the center of a film narrative," he said.
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