One of the more difficult aspects of any visual storytelling medium -- be it on the stage, TV or in film -- is getting believable performances from one's actors and actresses. Those in the profession employ a variety of techniques to get the job done, with none particularly better suited than the others when it comes to success.
The best are those that create performances that seem look, feel and smell so real that the performers don't even seem to be acting at all and have simply become their characters. The worst are too obvious in their mechanical attempts and thus never convince the viewer that the person they're watching is the character in the story.
One of the more popular methods in the past was the appropriately titled method acting. Thought up by Konstantin Stanislavski and brought to the U.S. by Lee Strasberg, the technique involved channeling a previous and personal emotional experience -- whether it's directly related to the particulars of a role or not -- and using that to create the same feeling now.
Of course, the closer the memory to the real thing, the better. Yet, why not use the real thing -- here and now -- to get the same result? That's what director Chris Kentis has done in "Open Water," the low-budget adaptation of supposedly true life stories featuring divers abandoned for some time in shark-infested waters.
Now, most of us have an innate fear of sharks and particularly being eaten by something larger than us, and some of that's obviously due to films such as "Jaws." Rather than just using a viewer's natural apprehension, utilizing a big mechanical shark or inserting computer-generated ones into his film, however, Kentis did the next best thing (or worse if you're one of the performers).
And that was putting his two leads into real open waters with real and potentially dangerous sharks. The effect might sound like a stunt Aussie Steve Irwin would attempt ("Crikey, those shark teeth are sharp, but aren't they a bute?") or even something along the engrossing, you are there filmmaking style employed in the original "The Blair Witch Project."
Like that film, this one was shot on a relative shoe-string budget and wants to use our collective fear of the unknown -- and what lurks below the surface and might just eat us -- to induce some heavy-duty thrills, chills and cries of "Look out" and "Get out of the water!"
The result -- while exceptionally short at just some 79 minutes including credits -- is occasionally effective (particularly if you fear the ocean and/or sharks), but eventually becomes waterlogged and falls prey to its own devices.
Namely, that's really only have two performers -- of less than stellar thespian abilities -- and having them stuck in the water, bobbing up and down and nervously spinning around to see if that really was a dorsal fin that just passed by.
There are those obligatory shark encounters, but Kentis -- who also wrote and edited the film -- also wants this to be something of a psychological examination of a couple under stress. That not only stems from their unusual but reportedly not altogether unheard of predicament, but also what our 21st century work schedules do to us.
The actors - Blanchard Ryan ("Super Troopers") and Daniel Travis (making his debut) who play the unmarried couple -- go through the usual range of emotions, including disbelief, boredom, fear, accusatory anger and more while waiting and hoping that someone will return to rescue them.
With a stronger script and better dialogue, not to mention more capable performers, the effort may have been more captivating or scary. It is at times, but at others, I found myself rather bored. I actually ended up hoping the sharks would show up soon to get the main story going (as the first third of the film goes nowhere as it barely establishes the characters and their situation, and thus does nothing to engage or make us care for them).
The film's big gimmick -- that the performers and filmmakers spent 120 some hours in shark-infested waters off Bermuda (where they reportedly threw bloody tuna to get the seagoing costars in the mood for action) will be lost on viewers who expect the usual Hollywood style trickery.
The low budget quality of the overall production (particularly in interior scenes where the sound is naturally hollow) doesn't help matters, although I occasionally found myself feeling the performers/characters' anxiety. Nevertheless, it wasn't enough to make me really worry about them. And none of it's as remotely effective as Robert Shaw's somber but bone-chilling speech in "Jaws" about the WWII sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and subsequent shark attacks on her crew.
Of course, this is only Kentis' second film (the first being "Grind" from 1997), so it's too early to say whether he'll one day match Spielberg's storytelling abilities and/or attract top-notch talent like Shaw. Interestingly and to their credit, both employed fear of the unknown and only brief views of the sharks, with the rest stemming from our imagination, to get the desired effect.
The difference, however, is that the first film contained a good story and terrific, flesh and blood characters that we truly cared about. There's flesh and blood here -- although not as much as "Shark Week" fans will probably be hoping for -- but it's of the wrong variety to get the job done as well.
Really more of a gimmick that's been stretched into a "full length" film, the effort has its moments, but it's not as scary as some are making it out to be. That is, unless your own fear of the open water keeps you out of it, in which case you might be shrieking right along with the film's admirers. "Open Water" ends up only treading water and thus rates as a 4 out of 10.
![[Logo]](/images/screenit_logo2.jpg){kind=logo}
