Review : Open Water, Chris Kentis, 2004

OPEN WATER

Original Title : Open Water

Directed by Chris Kentis

Written by Chris Kentis

With Blanchard Ryan, Daniel Travis, Saul Stein, Estelle Lau, Michael E. Willimson, Christina Zenarro, Jon Charles

Year : 2004

Country : USA

Length : 80 min

Rating : 7 / 10

SYNOPSIS

To forget about work and meeting again, Susan and Daniel decide to go on holydays in Bahamas. Great divers, they register to go in open sea, near to a coral barrier. The site is marvellous and the weather is great. But because of the large number of divers, because the crew isn't careful enough, the boat goes back without them. Susan and Daniel find themselves alone, lost in the middle of the ocean, in waters full of sharks...

REVIEW

"OPEN WATER" is the result of the collaboration between Chris Kentis – script-writer, director, director of photography and editor – and his wife,Laura Lau, producer and co-director of photography. It is the director's second project, having directed Billy Crudup, Adrienne Shelly and Amanda Peet before on "GRIND", a movie in which his wife was already there as a producer and co script-writer.
Confirmed divers in real life, the couple set their heart on realizing this movie, and giving their chance to young actors, Blanchard Ryan (already noticed in some independent movies and in "SEX IN THE CITY") and Daniel Travis (also present in "SEX IN THE CITY") for whom it's the first long-running movie.

"OPEN WATER" is inspired by a true story of a couple of divers left by mistake in the middle of the ocean neat the Coral Barrier in Australia. The scenario may seem a bit simplistic by looking at it once, but once you get into the movie and that you put yourself in the couple's place, the tension meter rises quite quickly.
Thanks to a realistic production needing neither special effects nor computer images, this long-running movie refers to our most instinctive phobias. The human being, at the top of the alimentary system, isn't anything anymore once he finds himself alone in the middle of an ocean crawling with creatures.
Instable, omnipresent, oppressing, terrifying but also beautiful by its moves and lights wonderfully directed, the ocean imposes itself as the true hero of the movie, leaving the main characters in the background.
Like for our couple, the tension of the movie rises slowly: whereas during the first hours they keep calm thinking that the boat will come back and get them, quickly, they become tensed and begin truly with tearing themselves apart before proving once again their love.
Moreover, the fact that they used real sharks in their natural background (the scenes were not shot in an aquarium but in the ocean, at more than 5.40 nautical miles from the shore) emphasizes the realistic and terrifying side of the movie. Chris Kentis said “Shooting real sharks, very close, seeing their flippers and tails pointing and hitting the surface, it has nothing to do with the usual Hollywoodian flipper slipping without jerks at the surface...”.

However, the movie becomes quite repetitive in spite of the shortness of the length (only 80 minutes). "OPEN WATER" stays, however, a very good movie, containing some very spooky scenes.
After "THE JAWS", "OPEN WATER" will make you see the ocean in another way.

Note from Oh My Gore ! : 7 on 10

Published on 2004-07-23