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THE SHALLOWS
It borrows elements from films like Jaws, Cast Away, and 127 Hours, but 2016's The Shallows hits an effective and economic bullseye because it provides the scares that the story sets up, but provides something that is so rare in films like this, something that Hitchcock was a master at producing...suspense.
The story is simple: Nancy (Blake Lively) is a nursing student who has left her girlfriend at the hotel and been driven to a special section of beach that has personal meaning to her and plans to do some surfing, but before she even realizes what's happening, Nancy finds out the area she is surfing in is the feeding ground for a great white shark, who has other meals before his final battle of wills with Nancy.
This film features meticulous direction by Jaume Collet-Serra that has a real Hitchcock influence to it...he makes you think he's playing all his storytelling cards when he's not and he doesn't shove all the scares at you at once...viewer patience is required and said patience is how suspense is manifested here. During the opening scene, we see a helmet with a camera on it found by a young boy and we see footage of a shark attack on the camera and we think the story is being telegraphed, but it really isn't. The opening scene is just a warning to the viewer as to what kind of terror is possibly on the horizon.
But instead of bringing us straight to the terror, the director takes the time to let us into the middle of Nancy's life...he lets us know that this is a real person going through stuff and that her life already is not sunshine and roses and that this vacation is a bit of an escape for her, as she immediately distances herself from human contact as quickly and politely as she can, including two fellow surfers who she ends up needing later and regrets her quick method of dispatch.
Collet-Serra creates amazing suspense here and even gives us a couple of false starts...there's a fabulous moment where we see Nancy being surrounded by a group of large fins surrounding and jumping over her and it's a few seconds before we realize they're dolphins, not sharks. We get the scares that the opening scene promises, but the director makes us wait for them.
Lively works hard at being believable in this role...a role which requires a lot of talking to herself and establishing a relationship with a small bird, similar to Tom Hanks' relationship with Wilson in Cast Away, but this movie so not about acting...this movie is about scares and the suspense of trying to figure out exactly when they're going to happen.
It borrows elements from films like Jaws, Cast Away, and 127 Hours, but 2016's The Shallows hits an effective and economic bullseye because it provides the scares that the story sets up, but provides something that is so rare in films like this, something that Hitchcock was a master at producing...suspense.
The story is simple: Nancy (Blake Lively) is a nursing student who has left her girlfriend at the hotel and been driven to a special section of beach that has personal meaning to her and plans to do some surfing, but before she even realizes what's happening, Nancy finds out the area she is surfing in is the feeding ground for a great white shark, who has other meals before his final battle of wills with Nancy.
This film features meticulous direction by Jaume Collet-Serra that has a real Hitchcock influence to it...he makes you think he's playing all his storytelling cards when he's not and he doesn't shove all the scares at you at once...viewer patience is required and said patience is how suspense is manifested here. During the opening scene, we see a helmet with a camera on it found by a young boy and we see footage of a shark attack on the camera and we think the story is being telegraphed, but it really isn't. The opening scene is just a warning to the viewer as to what kind of terror is possibly on the horizon.
But instead of bringing us straight to the terror, the director takes the time to let us into the middle of Nancy's life...he lets us know that this is a real person going through stuff and that her life already is not sunshine and roses and that this vacation is a bit of an escape for her, as she immediately distances herself from human contact as quickly and politely as she can, including two fellow surfers who she ends up needing later and regrets her quick method of dispatch.
Collet-Serra creates amazing suspense here and even gives us a couple of false starts...there's a fabulous moment where we see Nancy being surrounded by a group of large fins surrounding and jumping over her and it's a few seconds before we realize they're dolphins, not sharks. We get the scares that the opening scene promises, but the director makes us wait for them.
Lively works hard at being believable in this role...a role which requires a lot of talking to herself and establishing a relationship with a small bird, similar to Tom Hanks' relationship with Wilson in Cast Away, but this movie so not about acting...this movie is about scares and the suspense of trying to figure out exactly when they're going to happen.