WHAT WAS ONCE IN THE DEEP IS NOW IN THE SHALLOWS.Â
American medical student Nancy Adams (Blake Lively) goes to a secluded beach in Mexico, but her surfing is interrupted by an aggressive great white; after being bitten, she clings to a rock… On paper, this thriller can’t have looked like much. The story has little credibility in the battle between the girl and the shark, but the movie joins the ranks of predecessors like The Grey (2012), and obviously Jaws (1975), films that took a silly premise and created outrageous entertainment out of it. The director has plenty of experience building tension and the attractive visuals really put us on the rock together with Nancy. Lively’s likable performance makes us root for her.
2016-U.S. 86 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by Lynn Harris, Matti Leshem. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Screenplay: Anthony Jaswinski. Cinematography: Flavio MartĂnez Labiano. Music: Marco Beltrami. Cast: Blake Lively (Nancy Adams), Ă“scar Jaenada (Carlos), Brett Cullen (Mr. Adams), Sedona Legge, Angelo JosĂ© Lozano, JosĂ© Manuel Trujillo Salas.
Trivia: Louis Leterrier was allegedly first considered for directing duties.
Last word: “It’s a fear that lasts a year. You don’t see the shark. It’s not like we do a movie and jump into the movie knowing we can do it; we hope we can figure it out. You just jump into the water and get wet. The first time I edited the movie, the shark was a dot. You just put a dot on the screen that’s red, and it moves across the screen, from left to right to right to left. Then you move to the next stage, where you have a very rudimentary, not even like a flat animation of a shark, but a cutout, you know? Then you keep moving forward until you eventually see the real shark, but you never really see it. I just saw it for the first time two weeks ago. But it comes into pieces, to be honest.” (Collet-Serra, SlashFilm)