Lions Gate
There were two film posters wide used forOpen Water , the low - budget endurance thriller that swam into theater 20 years ago today . Themore sensational of the twofeatured the film ’s stars , Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis , bobbing in the H2O near the background of the figure . In the foreground — overshadowing them , intimately fleck out the whole image — is a large dorsal fin . This is what you could call the standard protocol for betray a movie about aquatic maneaters . When not merely rive off the iconic open hole of theJawsposter , the materialisation of that germinal blockbuster use the sinister trilateral on the brute ’s back as design bait . It ’s the visual eq of shouting “ Shark ! ”
Theother posterforOpen Wateris more suggestive — and , consequently , much airless in spirit to the moving-picture show it advertises . There are no shark visible in this artwork . rather , the prototype pulls further out from the couple into a severe wide jibe , emphasizing the vast , unforgiving sprawl of the sea around them . surround by H2O , puny under a canopy of storm clouds , the two bet trulyalone . And much more than the marauder circling below the waves , it ’s that sense of helpless isolation that gives this stripped - to - the - boneJawsdescendant its bite .
Lions Gate
WhatOpen Waterhas that many other shark movies do n’t is a iciness of plausibleness . It ’s an unsettlinglybelievablenightmare that plunk you down in the crapulence with its part . That the film isbased on a true storyonly tightens the clinch of its Platonism . In 1998 , a mates was by chance pass on behind during a diving trip to the Great Barrier Reef ; this historical screwup and the subsequent search reshape safety protocols in the Queensland scuba industry . unfold Waterchanges the names and the location — it ’s set in the Caribbean , not Australia — but stick genuine to the case that inspired it , while plausibly hypothecate on what may have happened out there after the gravy holder draw aside without two of its rider .
The opening scenes introduce us to Susan ( Ryan ) and Daniel ( Travis ) , workaholic untested professionals taking a much - needed , hastily planned tropical vacation . author - music director Chris Kentis identifies focus tune in their twentysomething bliss , like Daniel ’s failed attempts to put Susan in the temper the night before their ill - flesh out aqualung junket . These moments lie a bedrock of conflict — or , rather , conflict turning away — that the movie will exploit once the two are strand at ocean . Looked at one fashion , Open Wateris a drama about a kinship that ’s been coasting for a while and the bit that it hit some very choppy body of water .
How the two get abandoned is all too convincing . It hinge on another diver ’s gear screwup , a simple head count misapprehension , and Daniel ’s pressure that they do their own affair and break away a little from the group . Maybe 20 minutes into the movie , the two emerge from the depth to find that the boat ( and land ) is nowhere in batch . They ’ve been left behind . And as the hr tick by , their illusion that everything will be OK — that they ’re merely experiencing an epical troublesomeness — lento deflates .
Shot for as fiddling as $ 120,000 and screened to rave at the Sundance Film Festival , Open Wateris fundamentally theBlair Witch Projectof fivesome movie . Kentis , who identify as a scuba enthusiast in real aliveness , does n’t adopt a obtain - footage framework or anything . But he does shoot the moving picture on prosaic , early-2000s digital video recording that raise its sense of docurealism — that scraggly vérité timbre that can erase the invisible distance between an consultation and the outcome they ’re watching . There ’s certainly something distinctlyBlair Witchabout average hoi polloi suffer in the middle of nowhere , niggle and panic and trying to keep their humour about them as the sobering realness of their circumstances sets in .
Most of the pic is a two - hander . It could arguably work on the point , provided that stage was a swim pool . Besides the periodic ( and arguably unnecessary ) cutaway shot to juiceless land , we ’re just out in the ocean with these two character , float without resort as their patience wanes , their appetites develop , and sunlight slice . There ’s a sightly amount of teetotal wittiness in their reactions : “ I desire to go skiing ! ” Susan snaps during a late spat . As an acting exercise , Open Wateris deceptively ambitious . The movie ’s concern factor rest on how Ryan and Travis voyage the aroused shifts of this worst - case scenario .
The film ’s arc is two level - headed masses agnise , over the grade of a day , just how monumentally know they are . Like final patients experience the stages of grief , they stick to the buoy of denial , convincing themselves that the boat will be back any minute , that this is just a account they ’ll get to tell their friend afterwards . Early on , they neglect their pegleg weights , joking that the society would n’t dare endeavor to bear down them for them , as if that were the biggest thing they in the end have to worry about . Their irritation eventually crack into anger and then into fear . They ’ve put their trust in fail - safes and guardrails that do n’t be .
As for the star attractor , they ’re on the outer boundary , until they are n’t . In another play for realism , Kentis used genuine sharks instead of animatronics or CGI . They are not the hulking leviathans we ’ve add up to expect in the backwash ofJaws . They calculate and behave like substantial animals , splash around erratically , their attack arriving without admonition or dun - dun foreshadowing . There ’s one spectacularly creepy money shot of late in the film asthe tv camera dips below the frame demarcation of the water to catch a quick glimpse of a whole school of them dash around their soft targets . It ’s a neat metaphor for how Susan and Dan march the peril of their situation — the frightful the true lounge just out of sight .
But if you move intoOpen Waterexpecting a full - blown creature feature , you might forget gnashing your own teeth . The sharks are a mete abstract threat , a monster rarely seen . jaw , long celebrated for keeping the big guy out of sight for prospicient stretches ( a genius solution to a misfunction special result ) , is much heavier on shark action mechanism . Much gorier , too . As a final result , Open Waterproved about as divisive asBlair Witch , earn mostly positive reviews while like royalty tick off those not discriminating to watch a couple of strange actors float and argue for 80 minutes . ( At the Chainsaw Awards , Fangoria Magazine ’s one-year reviewer poll parrot , Open Waterwas constitute for bestandworst repulsion movie of the year . )
Still , the pic pushes beyond mere galeophobia . At its beneficial , it get you chew over what you would do in the five of the characters . Or what you evencoulddo . It ’s rare to see a thriller build on experiential helplessness . Susan and Daniel are almost literal sitting ducks , so vulnerable that they ca n’t even plant their feet . You could say that the film preys on a primaeval fear of the pee , but there ’s another care lurk deeper still , like those dead - eyed eating auto . spread out Watersays that the humans is not as safety - proofed as you thought . The defective can encounter , sometimes it will , and there ’s no warranty that anyone will come to save you . That ’s a hell of a portion scarier than a fish of any sizing or appetence .
