It's amazing how much we're conditioned by movies. Watch any shark film, from Jaws through Renny Harlin's underrated Deep Blue Sea, and you'll get a picture of the creatures as huge, vicious animals with giant teeth and preternatural speed. Especially if you've gotten most of your shark lore from movies, it's a little disconcerting to watch Chris Kentis' new lo-fi thriller Open Water and see the actual sharks he used to menace his two main characters. Sure, it's cool that he stuck two unknown actors in the middle of the ocean amidst a bunch of real sharks, with nothing to protect them but their wetsuits and some body armor. It's an admirably ingenious and refreshingly non-flashy move for a thriller, but the first time the sharks show up you can't help but think: "They're so teeny!"
It's a strange criticism, but in a way Kentis' verisimilitude undermines his ability to scare you. Since Open Water is built on a premise both brilliant and flawed in its simplicity, its effectiveness relies wholly on its ability to creep you out. Supposedly based on true events, but essentially fictionalized from only the most superficial of details, writer-director Kentis' story focuses on yuppie couple Susan (Blanchard Ryan) and Daniel (Daniel Travis), workaholics who can barely make time for each other, let alone a much-needed vacation to an unnamed tropical island. Once there, they fill their time with tourist activities, and then end up too tired even to have sex at night. They make time for e-mail, but not each other. It's a broad characterization, but it allows Kentis to give the audience a quick feel for the characters without wasting too much time.
The meat of the story (pun intended) is Susan and Daniel being stranded in the middle of the ocean and finding themselves at the mercy of the disappointingly normal-sized sharks. On a scuba-diving daytrip, a head-count snafu leaves the couple behind with no clue of where they are or how to get back to shore. They see boats that are deceptively far away, vainly wave for help, and look for ways to blame each other for their predicament. At first, their response is cavalier. "This really sucks" is the best they can muster, and sadly, also is an indication of Kentis' skill at writing dialogue.
After the strange anticipation of the film's opening (it's not like you go to the theater not knowing they get stranded in the water), the middle is remarkably tedious. It's clear that even at less than 80 minutes, the film is padded and Kentis, like his protagonists, has to spend some time treading water. Bobbing up and down in the ocean, Susan and Daniel engage in petty bickering while glimpsing shark fins, but in both senses, the danger remains under the surface. Acting essentially from the shoulders up, Ryan and Travis make the most of the minimalist script and setting, and Ryan in particular has some heart-wrenching moments.
Just when you think Kentis has delivered a film that's all hype and no follow-through, he ratchets up the tension and has the sharks finally do something in the excellent last 15 minutes. A nighttime sequence, illuminated only by flashes of lightning, is positively harrowing and the ending is chilling and utterly perfect. For all the buzz about using real sharks, Kentis actually gets the most scares out of the scenes that leave the sharks as unseen adversaries, and by the end, we understand their menace better when what goes on under the water is left to our imagination.
Made for less than $200,000 and picked up for much more at Sundance, Open Water carries the burden of living up to unreal expectations, a strange phenomenon that befalls overhyped indie genre movies like The Blair Witch Project and Primer, a sci-fi film picked up at Sundance and set for wide release this fall. In a way, these films are expected to be more effective than Hollywood genre films, to break new ground and do things that big budgets and big stars prevent other movies from doing. Because they've come from an independent background, they're somehow expected to be more than just good examples of their genre. Open Water isn't revolutionary, and as drama it's a bit inert. But there's nothing wrong with a movie that just provides the audience with some decent scares, whether they come from fancy special effects or plain old fish with sharp teeth. On that count, Open Water delivers enough to make it worthwhile for those jonesing for a chill. Otherwise, its bark is much worse than its bite.