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Open
Water
Chris Kentis, USA, 2004
Rating: 2.6
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Posted: August 22,
2004
By
Laurence Station
The ocean is a scary place. If nothing else, Open Water, Chris Kentis' independently financed second feature, capably illustrates this
point. The premise -- a couple stranded by a diving boat in the middle of
the ocean -- is all too plausible (drawing primarily from a recent,
similarly unnerving real life incident). But it's hardly enough to carry
an entire film, as evidenced by the scant hour-and-twenty-minutes' running
time. Kentis gambles the success of his entire narrative on the time
his two leads spend adrift in the water, anxiously watching as sharks
grow increasingly bold in their attempt to dine on the helpless couple.
And it's simply not enough.
As some larger existential examination of humankind's inability to
control nature, Open Water has little of consequence to say. Kentis
is doggedly literal in his approach: Susan (Blanchard Ryan) and Daniel
(Daniel Travis) take an island vacation in an attempt to put their
incredibly busy and stressed out lives on pause. The distance between the
couple is established early on (while Daniel waits to leave for the trip
in the car he calls Susan, who's in the house, on his cell phone -- an
obvious but effective example of their emotional disconnect), and a
subsequent failed attempt at lovemaking only reinforces their great
divide.
Unfortunately, this doesn't add up to very much. It's mere padding
until the ill-fated scuba diving trip, where a miscount by the boat crew
leads to Susan and Daniel resurfacing only to find they've been left
behind. As the current carries the couple across the water, they joke,
bicker, grow irritable and finally frantic as the elements and sharks
hasten their chances of survival to nil. Kentis never exploits the
pre-abandonment tension between the couple in any serviceable manner;
there's no great revelation or epiphany regarding their fractured
relationship. Susan and Daniel are simply a couple of self-absorbed,
hyper-competitive individuals stuck in a terrible spot. Since their
ultimate fate is hardly in doubt (hint: There's no last second Hollywood
rescue in the cards for these two), the power of Open Water rests on
how much the audience cares for the imperiled couple (or at least finds
them interesting). And that's where Kentis' film falls terribly flat. Ryan
and Travis are serviceable actors, but their characters are badly
underdeveloped and their dialogue contrived and flat.
Kentis does manage to derive genuine tension from the sharks (the
true stars of the picture), which dart and surface with increasing,
stomach-tightening menace. And his resolution regarding the couple's
inevitable demise is deftly handled as well. But there's simply not enough
back story to sustain the whole. It's as if Kentis read the tragic tale of
the real couple and figured he could craft an entire film from the
sketchily known facts. Unfortunately, he forgets to fabricate a few
attention-grabbing and relevant details, and that capsizes his entire story. We
do get the point, however: Never, ever get stranded in open water. At the
very least, dive boat companies will be sure to tighten their head count
policies thanks to this film.
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