THE SHALLOWS (2016) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

the shallows (2016) movie

Genre               |   Action Thriller

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   86 minutes

Released         |   16 August 2016

cast

Blake Lively ... Nancy
Óscar Jaenada ... Carlos
Angelo Josue Lozano Corzo ...
Surfer
Joseph Salas ... ​Surfer

director

Jaume Collet-Serra

writer

​Anthony Jaswinski ... (written by)

cinematographer

​Flavio Martínez Labiano

music

​Marco Beltrami

film editor

Joel Negron

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box office result

Worldwide             $​119,100,758  

Australia                 $​2,834,712

North America        $​​​​55,124,043

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the best dialogue

Chloe: Are you ready to get wet, Dr. Adams?

Nancy: [shoot's flare gun at shark] Fuck you.

Nancy: [to surfer's] GET OUT OF THE WATER, SHARK!
Surfer #1, Surfer #2: It's okay, no sharks come here.

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THE SHALLOWS (2016) IMAGES

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Posters

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Posters

THE SHALLOWS (2016) STORY SYNOPSIS

​In the taut thriller The Shallows, when Nancy (Blake Lively) is surfing on a secluded beach, she finds herself on the feeding ground of a great white shark. Though she is stranded only 200 yards from shore, survival proves to be the ultimate test of wills, requiring all of Nancy's ingenuity, resourcefulness, and fortitude.

THE SHALLOWS (2016) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 16 August 2016
​Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐

THE SHALLOWS is a movie whose title has an unintended double-meaning. Not only does it describe the watery setting on which the action unfolds, but also the limited plot and character development that make up the story. To be fair, any movie-goer who goes into THE SHALLOWS with high expectations has completely misunderstood the film’s marketing campaign, as most of the time is spent focussed on Blake Lively’s bikini outfit and the big shark that chases her around for the majority of the movie.

What is interesting about THE SHALLOWS is the work of Spanish Director Jaume Collet-Serra, whose career has seen him present films as varying in quality as diverse as they are in subject matter. Initially going down the path of Horror, Collet-Serra in recent years veered into the Action genre, pairing up with Liam Neeson in 2011 for UNKNOWN, in 2014 for NON-STOP and again in 2015 for RUN ALL NIGHT. With THE SHALLOWS, he blends his experience of suspense and action into an 86 minute film that spends as much time trying to be stylish as it does telling its rather harrowing tale.

The script, written by Horror specialist Anthony Jaswinski, tells the story of Nancy (Blake Lively), a young medical student who has dropped out of studying after the death of her mother from cancer. As a tribute to her late mother, Nancy makes a pilgrimage to a secluded beach somewhere on the coast of Mexico where her mother surfed many years before.

All of the film’s character development (albeit limited) happens early on, as the viewer learns that Nancy is close with her younger sister Chloe (Sedona Legge) and has become estranged from her father (Brett Cullen). Surprisingly, Collet-Serra opts for an array of visual effects to establish Nancy’s relationship with her family, including superimposing photos from her smartphone on the screen, as well as face-to-face video calls that somehow stretch the credibility of mobile phone reception given the story’s supposedly remote setting. The Shallows assumes that, like its screenplay, the viewer is prepared to dispense with story logic in anticipation of Blake Lively being hunted by the spawn of Jaws!

Collet-Serra almost completely “jumps the shark” with the creature’s first attack on Nancy. In one of the most ridiculous visual effects shots to appear in a mainstream feature film in recent memory, the Director pulls back to show his star surfing the face of a wave and the silhouette of the massive shark charging at speed toward her in the background.

The sheer absurdity of the effect is laugh-inducing, but, unfortunately, it breaks the viewer’s concentration at a critical moment in the movie. The action works a hell of a lot better when the Director and his Cinematographer Flavio Labiano get in close and capture the uncertainty of the shark’s position in location to Nancy as she’s hurled around in the surf against the rocky bottom of the shallow water.

Less effective are the pondering eye-in-the-sky shots that make the movie look like a music video. Despite the self-evident contrivance of her studies, being a medical student comes in handy for Nancy as the shark manages to leave something of an impression upon her from its initial attack. This leads to some of the best self-surgery viewers have been treated to since Noomi Rapace’s efforts in PROMETHEUS (2012)!

(It’s amazing what you can do with a couple of earrings, a necklace and a wet suit…)

To the benefit of the film, Collet-Serra doesn’t drag the action out. Editor Joel Negron, whose previous work includes Tim Burton’s SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999) and Shane Black’s THE NICE GUYS (2016), works with the Director to pull together a reasonably well-paced film. It lacks the slow sustained build-up of its cinematic inspiration in Jaws, but it works well enough with Lively being forced to race against the clock as the tide and her rapidly diminishing health work against her efforts to survive.

For viewers who may be uncertain about how gratuitous the violence of the shark attacks may be, it’s worth noting that THE SHALLOWS is M rated. There are a number of scenes that show the aftermath of the shark’s attacks on those unfortunate enough to venture into the water during the course of the film, but Collet-Serra chooses a fair degree of restraint in his depiction of the violence and opts to focus on Lively’s reaction in majority of the shots. THE SHALLOWS is a solid piece of film-making, but it’s a film based on a one-dimensional premise and requires the viewer to invest 100% in that premise for it to be believable. On that point, it’s out of its depth.

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