Shocking film, but it had to be here

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #86336 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-12-28
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Colour, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 5.00 pounds
• Running time: 79 minutes

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Customer Reviews

Susan and Daniel get left behind in the big blue ocean
The obvious comparison just about everybody seems to be making with "Open Water" is to "Jaws," but I think that misses the point. Yes, they both have sharks in them, but "Open Water" has more and they are more realistic than Bruce, but I think the cinematic reference point for Chris Kentis' film is "The Blair Witch Project." This is not just because it is filmed with a digital video camera rather than a 35mm camera but because it is the same sort of stripped down filmmaking. For most of "Open Water" we are looking at a couple in the middle of the ocean. Usually we look at them from above, sometimes from below, and sometimes we get point of view shots or looks at what is lurking beneath the waves. But most of this movie is about those two people floating in the ocean.

The two people are Susan (Blanchard Ryan) and Daniel (Daniel Travis); the "Blair Witch Project" analogy gets even stronger here because Blanchard is Ryan's middle name and her first name is Susan, but then we eventually learn the last name of the characters is Kitner, and that was the boy who gets eaten by the shark in "Jaws." They are a young couple who have finally found some time to get out of town and away from their lives (and cell phones). If this were a Greek tragedy you could point to the specific acts of hubris by each that doom them: he complains about her bringing along her laptop but she catches him using it while he finds her naked in bed but not in the mood for love making. Of course the Fates conspire against them that when heads are counted on the boat that they get missed and left behind.

We know from the start that Susan and Daniel are in for the long haul once they find themselves all alone in the water. Periodically the time of day pops up in the corner of the screen to tell us how long it has been, but the hours just keep rolling along. There are sharks and other things in the water for Susan and Daniel to worry about to be sure, but there is also nobody else for them to blame but each other as they ride the emotional and physical rollercoaster of being out in the middle of nowhere. Not only does it definitely put life in perspective, it forces them to do the same thing with regards to death.

"Open Water" is a "true" story in the same sense as "A Perfect Storm," where we basically know the start and the end (although I doubt the end Kentis comes up with is the same as the "true" story of the couple left behind in Australia's Great Barrier Reef) but the middle becomes conjecture. You can easily imagine Kentis, who wrote/directed/edited the film and is a certified diver, hearing the story of two divers being left behind and his mind coming up with thoughts and images of what that must have been like. The result is a sort of "realism," as in the imitation of life that the ancient Greeks considered their tragic plays to be, in that I bought the idea that this is what it would be like and this is what would happen. You might not like the ending, but you cannot consider it a cop out.

In a summer when I was assaulted by an overload of special effects in films like "I, Robot," or treated to jiggling cameras and constant smash cuts in films like "The Bourne Supremacy," this was a movie made by a guy sitting in a boat with a camera while two actors stayed in the water. "Open Water" is not cinema in the sense of "Jaws," which had the virtues of Steven Spielberg's sense of montage and John Williams' unforgettable score, but a movie that gets it sense of suspense and terror from the situation. The editing is straightforward and the music, mostly ominious stirngs and drums, is rather minimalistic.

I was thinking 4.0 for this film until the end, when I raised it a notch to 4.5. The DVD extras are okay, but not quite enough to round up. I fully understand that "Open Water" will not be appreciated by everybody who sees it (obviously given the vehement denunciations of the film) and that it is not a great film that any one will want to watch over and over again, like "Jaws." I watched "Open Water" again when it came out on DVD and will probably never watch it again. But it is an honest effort at filmmaking at a time when the rule is to substitute style and special effects for substance and story. Those who liked "The Blair Witch Project" until it turned out in the end to be a shaggy dog story will have no complaint on that score with this film.

DULL

I hate films like these!
IT BASED ON A TRUE STORY,
it wasn't.

The acting was appauling and the end was the worst
thing to ever witness,
its mainly 2 people floating after
being left by there boat.
Shark infested water?
So many sharks and in the end,
the man dies by being bit on the foot and the girl just
sinks!

Why THUMBS UP, no thumbs down,
not a one star an absoulute zero,
where did the other review comed from!

WOW
I would like to start off by saying the alien costumes are spectacular in design and quality.
As far as the plot goes I do not think I have ever witnessed such a rich soup of romance and comedy. The animal sex scenes are mind-blowing, leaving little to the imagination.

I hope several sequels are spawned from this epic.