Open Water

My husband and I thought this movie was horrible. It was two hours of two people wading in the water. I could not stand it. It was difficult to watch and sit through. I had seen previews for this movie and thought it looked exciting and interesting, but trust me, it was painful to watch. I don't know why we continued watching it after the first 20 minutes, I guess we were waiting for something cool to happen. I could have watched the wall for 2 hours and been more entertained. I was also upset with the ending, it just did nothing for me. There were actually times I was yelling at my TV for something to happen and it never did. This had to be the most boring movie ever made. I can't believe it was actually in the theaters. Save your money!!

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Ridiculous! I can't BELIEVE they spent over two years filming this (on weekends and vacation time), and that the actors actually put themselves at risk swimming with actual sharks. Taking that risk for THIS?! ** Here's the spoiler ** What was up with that ending? I wasn't even sure what happened to the man, at first. Directing, editing and "script" on that was completely vague. So it was up to the actress, I suppose, to convey that he had died. (And how idiotic that she'd just push him off, instead of hang onto him / retain his body for a proper funeral / use him for flotation / use his equipment (knife, e.g.) for possible tools of survival). And then when she submerges herself I said, "Is that it? Is she drowning herself? Is she just 'hiding' from sharks?" (Ha!). And then, fade to black. Uhh, yeah. Whatever. Talk about inability to write a scenario and direct with competence! Two more annoying things: 1) That boob shot. It stood out like a sore ..thumb. So glaringly gratuitous. I felt embarrassed for the actress because it was so unnecessary, despite what the Producer said in the optional Commentary on the DVD. Which brings me to annoying thing #2): The optional Commentary on the DVD: the Producer (the director's wife) must be one of the most irritating people in the biz. In one breath she's trying to be 'deep' about the bland story, and in the next she's "selling" this entire cheap project as something stupendous. Shut up! Fade to black.

Cinema can weave magic . According to legend when the Lumiere brothers showed L'ARRIVEE D'UN TRAIN to a public audience gasped in astonishment literally thinking that a locomotive was going to come crashing through the screen . Actually this is probably only an apocryphal myth that has little basis in reality but is commonly accepted as fact . Same as everyone accepts as fact that in the wild west people challenged each other to stand in the middle of the street and " draw " when in reality most gunfighters shot their opponents in the back . But people believe the legend because it's appeared in so many films it cast a hand on the human psyche , same as everyone believes America won the war single handed because they've seen so many Hollywood war movies . This latter point can be very annoying to people . Another irritant is films that claim to be " Based on a true story " when in fact the phrasing is economical with the truth . OPEN WATER is an example of this Chris Kentis film hit the cinema circuits in 2004 heavily hyped as being " Based on a true story " which led to people asking questions like if that was the divers fate then surely no one would have witnessed it ? In truth it's not " based " on a true story - it's" inspired " by a true life incident featuring two American divers Tom and Eileen Lonergan who disappeared off the coast of Australia in 1998 after a scuba group they were diving with sailed back to dry land failing to notice their were two less passengers on the boat . The protagonists here are Daniel and Susan who happen to be diving off the coast of the Bahamas . In truth the premise at its most very basic mirrors a real life incident but it's somewhat dishonest to claim it's based on a real life incident The film only cost $130,000 to produce and recuperated a grand total $55 million at the worldwide box office . This is a phenomenal return but again one should ask if it would be nearly as successful if the film had been marketed as a work of total fiction ? After all THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT tried to market itself as being real life footage but when people started to ask too many questions the distributor Artisan Entertainment then marketed the movie as the scariest film ever made . I do wish distributors would stop trying to con the public OPEN WATER is certainly a minimalist movie but one wonders if Chris Kentis should have perhaps tried a realist film approach . He uses incidental music and time lapse photography in order to tell the story both of which negate it as realist . That said he manages to communicate the angst and gloom as to the fate of Daniel and Susan and considering most of the story is basically just two people talking to one another it's compelling enough to remain watchable . It's also a surprise that seven years after it was released Kentis hasn't made another movie

An hour ago i finished watching Open Water for the first time and i still cannot stop thinking about it. What a powerful film. I walked away feeling deeply saddened, though somewhat disturbed, yet altogether moved. I am so so glad that Hollywood didn't get a hold of this story and make a typical box office affair of it. The way the movie was shot (on hand-held digital cameras) totally allowed the viewer to feel the same level of desperation as the couple would have been feeling. I truly felt their desperation, the sense of hopelessness was brilliantly conveyed in the film. For once viewers were not given the storyline straight up and were actively involved in unraveling the story the entire film. More movies should leave me feeling effected like this one has. That's what movies are meant to do, they just don't seem to anymore! Congartulations Open Water - you did what so many big-budget thriller/drama films fail to do - you actually got to the viewer.

I thought the "meat" of this movie was fair, it was the parts leading up to it and the ending that were awful. This might have done a lot better as a much shorter film. Even at only an hour and 20 minutes, it was about 30 minutes to long. The character development is *weak*. If you're not going to bother doing some real character development, don't do it at all. For the first 25 minutes, I could have been watching my girlfriend and I go through our daily ups and downs. If I wanted to watch that, I'd just video tape any random couple for a day and have all the footage I needed. The acting was fair at best. The chemistry between these two never worked for me. The bedroom scene was really a mystery to me. Here's our lovely female lead, * in bed. Boyfriend jumps in, they kiss, she wonders aloud if she's in the mood, they kiss, she decides she's not in the mood but wants to talk. He rolls over and they go to bed. I very much felt the only reason scenes like this were in the movie was to make it long enough to turn into a "feature" picture and put in theaters. Some of the deleted scenes reinforce this point as we're subjected to a scene that shows the alarm going off, the characters laying in bed, struggling to wake up, and then a 30 second shot slowly closing in on the ceiling fan. That's right, 30 seconds of ceiling fan action. Dramatic! I thought the ending was hacky as well, as if the writer had no idea how to end this movie. Techncailly, they didn't, as it was based on a true story and the true persons who experienced this are, of course, dead. Boyfriend has bled out from a shark bite inflicted late the previous day. Girlfriend pushes him away and he is quickly devoured by sharks. The last scene shows girlfriend commit suicide by drowning herself. First off...it's hard to drown yourself without weights. The body is naturally buoyant and it would take a heck of a lot willpower to keep from jerking your head above the water. Drowning hurts. A lot. The vast majority of the population would surface to stop the pain. Secondly, how do we know this person committed suicide? Why not show the final image of the girlfriend adrift by herself? For me, that would have been a lot more dramatic than seeing her commit suicide in suspect fashion. Had this movie started as the couple boarded the boat and ended with the camera slowly pulling back from girlfriend, alone in the water, I would have given it 6 stars. Combined with the hackey front "half" of the movie and the cop-out of an ending, I was pretty unsatisfied.

When I first saw the movie cover of Open Water, I thought to myself OH GREAT! Another movie about sharks, what next? As I walked through the video store today, my younger brother insisted that I watch it. I thought to myself, do I really want to watch this, especially with it being about people lost at sea? So I rented it. After viewing it, I was left in a stage of sadness and could not believe what I had just seen. The plot was so turned around in the end that I was just left with my expressions still showing after viewing it. This movie was beyond an excellent thriller. It was like no other film I had ever seen before. I expected the same ending that most shark films had but it had a different ending than what I thought it would end up being. I was amazed at how unique this film was. It is Movies like these that keep you wanting more and more of suspense.

I'm a diver, and I like dark movies and original films. So I guess this one's made for me. But you know what? I liked "Finding Nemo" too. There's something to be said for judging a film on it's own merits rather than on the merits of the film you were expecting to see. Perhaps the outraged masses posting here ought to be reading reviews rather than writing them. As an experienced diver, I should probably say a couple of words on movie's premise. The "left behind" scenario depicted here, is presumably based on the Lonergan incident, which made world-wide news precisely because it was so unusual. The standard procedure I've encountered goes like this: you sign in on a signup sheet. They check you off when you exit the boat, and check you on when you reboard. The crew does a roll call before moving the boat; you answer for yourself and yourself only. If someone says, "Oh, he's in a bunk below," they go down and get you. While it's possible to be missing (swept away in the current, out of sight behind land, etc.) the boat does know that you're missing, and they're not leaving without you. Only the most egregious violation of procedure--not a mistake--can account for the missing Lonergans. Of course, if the film had done that, they woundn't have a film--just a vacation video. Oh, and if the crew would have let that guy dive alone--they would have caught their mistake! The buddy system claims another life.