The Shallows finally provides a welcoming breath of fresh air to the horror genre that has been sorely lacking. Here is a movie that combines great suspense, wonderful cinematography, and a solid performance from Blake Lively. This is truly one of the summer’s biggest surprises.
Lively stars as Nancy Adams, a med school dropout who journeys to a secluded island told to her by her late mother. After getting to the beach, she meets two guys and they go surfing. Later on by herself, Nancy discovers the corpse of a large whale and then gets bumped by a great white shark that bites her. From then on, it’s up to Nancy to figure out how not to become shark bait.
Nancy is a med school dropout, but those resources become helpful after her attack when she uses some of her jewelry to stitch up her wounds, but that means she loses less and less of her clothing.
She’s not alone at sea as she still has the whale corpse to stay afloat on and she befriends a wounded seagull which sort of becomes the Wilson to her Tom Hanks. Great chemistry abounds between the two.
The story of The Shallows is a pretty straightforward survivalist thriller. What’s special about it in its genre is how it makes its protagonist refusing to be a damsel in distress and by employing some crafty techniques to keep the suspense fresh. Although, there is a moment or two when we can sense when the shark is going to pop out.
The movie is sort of a cross between Jaws and Cast Away, but just as thrilling and memorable as either one of those films. It has a surprisingly strong screenplay for an 87 minute movie and just like a shark in a feeding frenzy, it waits for the opportune moment to deliver the goods.
Grade: A-
(Rated PG-13 for bloody images, intense sequences of peril, and brief strong language.)
