This has to be the angriest line in the entire movie ("We paid to do this!"), uttered in a furious, hopeless growl by Daniel (Daniel Travis) as he and Susan (Blanchard Davis) float and drift aimlessly in the calm waters of the Atlantic after being left behind by their cruise and slowly yet inexorably lose any hope of being rescued by anyone. Because it sums up the way reality becomes a surreal nightmare -- young yuppie couple pay for a vacation getaway in the Caribbean and find themselves being shark bait, and who really is to blame? Them? The crew's carelessness for not doing a name count? They could have gone skiing (no sharks there) and not been stuck in this quandary. What have they done to deserve this?
There are no answers to these questions, only open sea and the mounting dangers just below the surface. To know that these dangers are there, but not to see them, is just as bad -- even worse -- than to actually see them. Chris Kentis, thankfully using the less is more approach and shooting the film in an anti-conventional form (no artificial lighting, no backdrops, no CGI sharks, no large water tanks substituting for open sea for close-ups, digital video), creates a visceral experience with this short movie that relies on so much since almost an hour is spent in the water. Never does a moment go by feels like filler: the events feel real, the mounting desperation as Susan and Daniel slowly realize just how dire their situation is feels right (even though sometimes the delivery feels too flat -- but this is perfectly fine, since this is how people actually talk instead of talking in speech), and the timing from when the fake shark head which Daniel ironically sticks his head into in the marketplace, from the mention of sharks about 20 minutes in, to the actual, split-second appearance of a shark's fin and tail 30 minutes in is great and its quiet yet horrifying conclusion in many ways, outdoes JAWS. No swelling music, just the vague, grey outline of the animal beneath the surface, and that alone is enough to create moments of incredible dread, especially in the best sequence in the film: its night sequence, where all we see is what they see, darkness and each other once lightning flashes, drowning their screams and implying another shark attack.
However, OPEN WATER is not a movie about fear in itself. It's more about this vast, stomach-turning emptiness of how suddenly meaningless our lives become when put into a (pun intended) fish-out-of-water situation. It's not only knowing that the waters are infested with sharks, but knowing that the end will come.
There are no answers to these questions, only open sea and the mounting dangers just below the surface. To know that these dangers are there, but not to see them, is just as bad -- even worse -- than to actually see them. Chris Kentis, thankfully using the less is more approach and shooting the film in an anti-conventional form (no artificial lighting, no backdrops, no CGI sharks, no large water tanks substituting for open sea for close-ups, digital video), creates a visceral experience with this short movie that relies on so much since almost an hour is spent in the water. Never does a moment go by feels like filler: the events feel real, the mounting desperation as Susan and Daniel slowly realize just how dire their situation is feels right (even though sometimes the delivery feels too flat -- but this is perfectly fine, since this is how people actually talk instead of talking in speech), and the timing from when the fake shark head which Daniel ironically sticks his head into in the marketplace, from the mention of sharks about 20 minutes in, to the actual, split-second appearance of a shark's fin and tail 30 minutes in is great and its quiet yet horrifying conclusion in many ways, outdoes JAWS. No swelling music, just the vague, grey outline of the animal beneath the surface, and that alone is enough to create moments of incredible dread, especially in the best sequence in the film: its night sequence, where all we see is what they see, darkness and each other once lightning flashes, drowning their screams and implying another shark attack.
However, OPEN WATER is not a movie about fear in itself. It's more about this vast, stomach-turning emptiness of how suddenly meaningless our lives become when put into a (pun intended) fish-out-of-water situation. It's not only knowing that the waters are infested with sharks, but knowing that the end will come.