While surfing from a remote Mexican beach a young woman named Nancy Adams is attacked by a shark. She manages to swim to an isolated rock about 200 yards offshore, but cannot make it back to the beach. To make matters worse, the rock is regularly submerged at high tide.
And that, in a nutshell, is the plot of "The Shallows". This is essentially suspense film making in its purest, most simplified form. No subplots. No detailed character analysis or development. Little dialogue. One sole location (apart from the final scene). An adversary who has no complicated psychological motives, only blind killer instincts. This being a suspense thriller there have to be a few false hopes of rescue first raised and then dashed, otherwise the film would have been over in about half an hour.
The nearest the plot comes to complexity is when it explains something of Nancy's back-story. We learn that she was a medical student but dropped out of medical school after being traumatised by the recent death of her mother. (Her medical training has some relevance to the plot as it explains how she is able to treat her own injuries). The reason why Nancy chose this particular beach is because her mother visited it while pregnant with her. We also learn that Nancy has a father and a younger sister, Chloe, back in Galveston, Texas.
This is, of course, a one-woman film. Blake Lively who plays Nancy is on screen virtually the whole time; no other character plays anything like a major role. Well, no other human character. The second most important character is the shark itself and the third most important a seagull whom Nancy names "Steven". Steven Seagull (geddit?) is also injured by the shark and is the nearest thing Nancy has to a companion during her ordeal. I would agree with the critic who described Lively's performance as being "as much an athletic feat as an aesthetic one", as this is a film which depends upon its action sequences for its effect. Some people have described the efforts to provide Nancy with a back-story as unnecessary, on the grounds that in a battle between girl and shark the audience are always going to root for the girl even if she is an escaped convict rather than an aspiring doctor. I think, however, that the film-makers were right to provide their heroine with an identity and a life and thus establish her as an individual with whom we can identify rather than a mere plot device.
In a sense the title of "The Shallows" is an apt one; there is little that is deep or significant about it, but then the film-makers never set out to make a deeply significant meaning-of-life movie. They set out to make a gripping thriller which would hold our attention for an hour-and-a-half, and in this we can say that they succeeded. 7/10
A goof. The film is supposedly set in Mexico, but Steven Seagull is a silver gull, a species native to Australia and not found in Mexico. The reason is that, despite its ostensible setting, the film was shot on location in Australia.
And that, in a nutshell, is the plot of "The Shallows". This is essentially suspense film making in its purest, most simplified form. No subplots. No detailed character analysis or development. Little dialogue. One sole location (apart from the final scene). An adversary who has no complicated psychological motives, only blind killer instincts. This being a suspense thriller there have to be a few false hopes of rescue first raised and then dashed, otherwise the film would have been over in about half an hour.
The nearest the plot comes to complexity is when it explains something of Nancy's back-story. We learn that she was a medical student but dropped out of medical school after being traumatised by the recent death of her mother. (Her medical training has some relevance to the plot as it explains how she is able to treat her own injuries). The reason why Nancy chose this particular beach is because her mother visited it while pregnant with her. We also learn that Nancy has a father and a younger sister, Chloe, back in Galveston, Texas.
This is, of course, a one-woman film. Blake Lively who plays Nancy is on screen virtually the whole time; no other character plays anything like a major role. Well, no other human character. The second most important character is the shark itself and the third most important a seagull whom Nancy names "Steven". Steven Seagull (geddit?) is also injured by the shark and is the nearest thing Nancy has to a companion during her ordeal. I would agree with the critic who described Lively's performance as being "as much an athletic feat as an aesthetic one", as this is a film which depends upon its action sequences for its effect. Some people have described the efforts to provide Nancy with a back-story as unnecessary, on the grounds that in a battle between girl and shark the audience are always going to root for the girl even if she is an escaped convict rather than an aspiring doctor. I think, however, that the film-makers were right to provide their heroine with an identity and a life and thus establish her as an individual with whom we can identify rather than a mere plot device.
In a sense the title of "The Shallows" is an apt one; there is little that is deep or significant about it, but then the film-makers never set out to make a deeply significant meaning-of-life movie. They set out to make a gripping thriller which would hold our attention for an hour-and-a-half, and in this we can say that they succeeded. 7/10
A goof. The film is supposedly set in Mexico, but Steven Seagull is a silver gull, a species native to Australia and not found in Mexico. The reason is that, despite its ostensible setting, the film was shot on location in Australia.