Customer Reviews

Open Water

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(69)
3 star:		(44)
2 star:		(47)
1 star:		(109)

 

 

This movie is not the next "Jaws", and it is not your typical scary shark movie. It's more than that. There is very little gore and no actual violence (that is seen). There are some surprising and startling parts of this movie (when the sharks fins crop up out of the water), but you won't be white-knuckled for most of it. Think of it as more of a drama/suspense, not an action, scary or horror film. It's more about the couples' war between themselves.

It is still very scary, but a different type of scary: tense and psychological. Much of the tension is only in your head. You will ask yourself "where are the sharks?". As Daniel Travis says, "I don't know what's worse: seeing them or not seeing them."

Director Chris Kentis filmed the movie with a digital, hand-held video camera (giving it a "home video" type of feel). Also, this movie was very low budget, so Kentis couldn't afford any Spielberg type of special effects. So what did he do? He took the actors and dumped them into real shark-infested waters! Therefore, you can sense that some of the actors' fears are genuine. These two things make the movie very realistic.

PLOT/SCREENPLAY: The couple, played by the unknown actors Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis, go on vacation. On their vacation, they go scuba diving, and after a miscount, are mistakenly left all alone, in the middle of the ocean. They tread water for most of the movie, talking to themselves and watching for sharks. The couple try to live through jellyfish, bouts of vomiting, and themselves.
I was impressed with the plot. It's a rather simple one, but I felt the script did a lot more with the plot then I had expected. The plot's basis was based on a true event, so that makes it all that more scary. The only problem with the plot is that the end is somewhat anti-climatic.

DIALOUGE: The couple have nothing else to do but talk to eachother. The dialogue shows their moods shift from optimisitic, depressed, angry, in denial, casting blame on one another, tired, hungry, and finally submissive.
Some people say the movie didn't tell us enough about the characters for us to care about them, but I disagree. The dialogue helped to develop the characters and give them depth (make them seem like real people). The dialogue also helped the plot to extend over the course of 79 minutes without wearing thin. It's also very interesting to see that the dialogue shows how their moods change.

ACTING: As aforementioned, some of the actor's fears are genuine (since the sharks were real), so there's no problem believing the actors are scared, but when the actors change (and become angry and depressed) you can really feel what they're feeling. It may be partly due to the "home video" feature (which helps to capture the atmosphere), but the viewer almost feels like you are stranded in the ocean with the actors.

In conclusion, this movie was very well made and I recommend it (especially to "Jaws" fans, even though this movie is not very much like it). I also recommend it to fans of psychologically scary movies. It is not for those that are easily scared; it will make you never want to go into even the swimming pool again.

This review refers to "Open Water",Widescreen DVD(Lion's Gate)...

"Open Water" is a very well made independent film, written, directed, and produced by husband and wife team Chris Kentis and Laura Lau. It's made on a small budget and uses unknown actors, Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis, both turning in fine performances, to tell the story. It is not a thriller in terms of an edge of your seat, nail biting, jumping off your seat, or hiding your eyes "Jaws" type of film. Rather it is a low-keyed, but tense look at an everyday couple who get left behind on a SCUBA diving outing.

I saw this film as more of a character study of the couple as they go through an entire range of emotions, while wondering when they will finally be rescued. At first, the calm, thinking only, it was a silly mistake, then anger and fear set in. Dealing with hunger and thirst, fatigue, and the elements of the sea, including injuries from Jellly Fish and visits from some menacing Sharks, they try to endure, waiting for someone, anyone to save them.

If you are looking for a fast-paced thriller, pass this one by. The film runs almost and hour and a half and for the most part, focuses on the couple and the water, with an occassional glimpse of the normality going on on the Island they left behind. The film almost looks like a home movie, but a really well made home movie. It is one that will make you think though. What would you do if this happened to you? Based on an actual event, writer/directer Kentis puts his own mark on it. If you think this may be your kind of film, you may want to rent it first, as although a fine film, it is probably not one that will stand up to many repeated viewings.

If you have seen it, and know you like it, you will be happy with this DVD. Although I think it's a little on the expensive side for an Indie, you get quite a bit for your money. First of all the transfer is very nice. Excellent picture in widescreen, taking in the vast sea, and the colors are a stand out. Audio options are English,Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 6.1 and DD Stereo. You are totally surrounded by the sound of the ocean, and the haunting Island music sounds great as well. There are subtitles in English and Spanish. Special Features include commentary, The Indie Essentials filmmaker guide to marketing a movie,and On the High Seas: Making Open Water featurette (this was a really good look at what it takes to begin filmmaking).

A good view for aspiring filmmakers, or those wanting to check out a fine film, from a young filmmaker who will surely give us more thought provoking pieces in the future. It is rated R for some nudity and language.

Check it out...Laurie

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So what's up with this film? It received incredible hype at the Sundance Film Festival (and others) and was eventually picked up by Lion's Gate Entertainment for release to a more wide audience. Impressive. Especially for a film shot with a digital camera, and the entire cost of production being picked up by a husband and wife team.

As far as production goes, I've got no complaints. The fact that it WAS filmed on a low budget and by one family fills me with respect for this effort. Congratulations to Mr. Chris Kentis and his lovely wife. You've done a great job filming and editing it.

But . . .

Who were these people? And what I mean by that is, well . . . who were they! Okay. Okay. Let me explain. I just finished watching the film, but I have no idea WHO the husband and wife portrayed in the movie are! Are they near divorce? Why don't they have sex in their room when they're both naked and the husband starts making advances? Why does the wife turn him away, and why does he turn away from her? Has the wife had a miscarriage or something? Was there a recent infidelity by one of them?

I'll explain the problem in three simple words: needed character development.

The film is only 81 minutes long, so there was room for at least a few minutes of character development (in the beginning or even in flashbacks when they're left out on the sea). Cost must have been an issue (I mean, a low budget film taken on by two people surely must have had time constraints and budgetary concerns), but from a viewer perspective, the story felt too hollow. Again, let me explain.

This film is based on a true story about two divers (a husband and wife) who were left out near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia (although this version of the story doesn't take place there) during an excursion on a group boating tour. Their bodies were never found (read Bill Bryson's "In A Sunburned Country" for a nice little recounting of the disaster). In the "real story" there were assumptions of suicide by the husband and marital problems. Something that could've been developed nicely in a film such as this. But no. Here we're left to guess about the relationship and its dynamics. The only glimpse into these poor saps lives that the filmmakers give us is that they're both very busy people with little time for each other (DUH! That accounts for about 85% of relationships out there!).

So when "bad things" began happening to them - Jellyfish stings, sharks nibbling on `em - I had absolutely no empathy. "Oh look, one of them just lost a pound of flesh. Oh well."

If you want me to care about the people I'm watching, you need to SHOW ME why I should. People die all the time (war, famine, murder, or, as in this story, by the incompetence of the diving company that took the divers out there in the first place).

Next time, Mr. Kentis, please remember: character, character, character.

I know a lot of people said they were going to give out bad votes to people who said they liked this movie. Well, I was one of the people who liked Open Water. I indeed say I know why a lot of didn't. When purchased by Lion Gate's Films, Open Water was distributed as a big budget movie, and that could probably be the help of the exaggerated posters, but I think it brought in a good thrill here and there especially since I had my own experience with a shark when I was little.

Susan Watkins and Daniel Kintner (Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis) are an overworked couple who are trying to find a good vacation they can both enjoy, and where else is there to go on such an occasion that paradise? And naturally, in paradise, anyone would want to go diving out on the irresistable coral reef, surrounded with beautiful water in the open ocean.

But the unthinkable happens to the two when they are accidentally left out in the middle of the ocean by their incompetent tour boat 15 miles from shore. The two try to keep calm within the first few hours presuming the boat will be back, but soon, sharks begin to encircle, and the weather doesn't look too good for the two either. But even after drifting into 1,000,000 square miles of ocean, the couple soon realizes what they always feared: no one even knows they are missing.

Indeed I think it's a very well done movie and worth owning. A lot of people were dissappointed with Open Water because they didn't know it was going to be shot on digital video and on a low budget. They most likely expected a big budget film. The thing about the movie that made it interesting was that it had only a crew of three people not including the actors. The crew consisted of only the director Chris Kentis, his wife Laura Lau who was the producer, and her sister Estelle Lau, who also starred in the movie. The whole movie which looked expensive with how it was made, was spent on every single cent of their budget of $130,000. Not many people cared about how it was made because they hated the movie, but once I realized how it was made, I had a whole new aspect on it.

Don't ask me why, but it felt neat to be watching a movie in the same manner that documentaries are made in, shooting on digital video. I felt at any moment someone was going to come on the screen and start talking about the subject. I just found that neat in a way. At times it does make you feel like you're watching a documentary, but the illusion soon sits in about these two unfortunate people.

The movie which starred unknown actors had a chemistry between Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis that seemed unlikely within a lot of other big budget movies of our time. They just seemed to go good as a couple, almost perfect with the way they acted. It seemed also smart to work with unknown actors because the unknown ones are also the ones that do the best in anything. Well known actors are okay, but are too used to acting already. Saul Stein and Estelle Lau also did very good jobs for the small parts they had including the rest of the cast.

It was originally only intended for the Sundance film festival, but I'm thrilled that Lion's Gate Films bought it out or else I would've never seen it, probably. Also, I liked the idea of having it based on true events because the real couple never did make it back to dry land. It was three days before anyone even realized they were gone. It's fairly original to see how they could make the couple say things that were actually believable. After all, there's not much you can say drifting farther into the ocean. Believe me, I'm a junior author, and it's hard. For the director/editor/writer, his wife, and her sister, it was amazing what they accomplished with what little they had. 5 stars for originality and creativity.

After reading alot of bad reviews on
this movie, I thought I would hate it.
To my surprise, I really enjoyed it!
For such a low budget film, it was made
very well! It's a very realistic, true
story. Don't expect to see a Jaws type
movie, and you'll really enjoy it!

Open Water is NOT a big budgeted Hollywood movie. This is something that must be understood from the get go. This is only director Chris Kentis' second feature film. It was the first film for it's male lead Daniel Travis and the first starring role for female lead Blanchard Ryan. Moreover the film has the look and feel of a documentary in the way it's filmed. The sound is uneven in spots causing you to have to turn the volume up quite a bit higher than normal. So these things must be understood because they are certain to put off people who are used to much more polished looking films.

Susan and Daniel are a yuppie (is that still a valid term?) couple with hectic lives who take a rather rushed vacation to the caribbean. While there they take a scuba diving trip along with several other people. The organizers screw up the head count and when Daniel and Susan return to the surface they find that their boat has left them all alone in the middle of the ocean. This certainly plays upon one of man's primal fears; the thought of being lost in the middle of nowhere. To compound matters, sharks are swimming about and Susan has motion sickness from the choppy waters.

After several hours on the water the pair begin a somewhat contrived argument over whose fault it is that they are in the situation. It ends as quickly as it was thrown in however. And it has the feel of a toss away plot device to add a bit of meat to the barebones plot.

It's a short film and certainly doesn't end the way most people would think. It's a rather voyeuristic character study as we glimpse at two people so wrapped up in their own lives that they don't realize they are both to blame. The performances are strong and the style of direction and filming give it an edge that would be lost with a larger budget. Not what I expected at all but still very good.

What would you do if you were stranded in the middle of the ocean, with hungry sharks circling? Well, in Open Water, we find out what two people in just that situation might do. The film is starkly realistic and haunting in its depiction of this crisis, and plunges to depths you wouldn't expect in a horror film.

Left behind on a scuba diving trip out in the ocean due to a miscount on the boat, the young couple Daniel (Daniel Travis) and Susan (Blanchard Ryan) find themselves in disbelief that they have actually been left out in the ocean. They were here on vacation after all, and worse yet, they were paying for this! At first they try to rationalize their situation, and tell themselves that of course the boat was coming back to get them. But after a few hours, they start to realize that maybe it isn't, and then they begin to wonder what exactly is going to happen. They're too far from land, and the current is carrying them wherever it pleases, and, oh yeah, there are an increasing number of sharks swirling around in the water beneath them.

Open Water is the brainchild of writer-director Chris Kentis and his producer wife Laura Lau, who filmed it using digital video and unknown actors on a minimal budget over two and a half years. When you see the two actors swimming out there in the water, those are real live sharks swimming out there with them, which only adds to the tension that is created.

Kentis's choice of digital video lends the film a documentary-type feel, which is perfect, because a film such as this is better suited using a realistic style, which makes it seem all the more plausible. The actors do a fine job, in that they act exactly as I could see myself acting in the same situation, and I came away from the film thanking the heavens that I have not been, and hopefully never will be. It's about the worst thing I could imagine: being out in the middle of nowhere and nobody even knows it.

Looking over some of the reviews here it's obvious that this movie is not most people's favorite. But I'm a diver, and I've seen a dive boat leave people behind. A mistake like that tends to be caught quickly, but not in the case of this movie's stars. I won't get caught up in critiquing like most here, but instead, maybe I can offer a little advice so that you NEVER get caught in a predicament like this movie featured: How about, for starters, insisting on actual names being on a sign-in sheet? Most Florida boats do this, but in places where it is not the custom then I'd make it my business to have my face known by as many people on the boat as possible. The couple depicted in the film did something that you see alot of lovey-dovey couples do on dive boats...they snuggled up by themselves and didn't interact with anyone else. Little wonder that their absence wasn't noted by others, at least until they were already in big trouble. Last, but not least, many dive shops sell something which is an inflatable, bright orange tube (they go by several trade names) which rolls up and stows in a BC pocket easily. In the unlucky event of being forgotten by a dive boat, or drifting out of their immediate view, these babies can be quickly filled with air and extend about five feet above the water's surface. These things have saved lives. Hopefully, none of us will ever experience the terror this film's makers tried to portray. By using your head, you can make sure of that. And for what it's worth...I liked this film!

After reading other reviews you get a sense that this is filmed in the "blair witch project" style but I realized there is a reason why it was done this way. The characters did not become too real, I did not get to know either one of them too much, I just knew of them. And I want to thank the director for that or whoever is responsible because I fully expected them to survive and when they don't, I'm horrified. If that movie had been filmed in any other way where I got to know the characters more in depth, I would be traumatized. I liked the way it was done. But this is a horror film. From CDNN Article: The promotional material boasts that the film is "based on true events", but its makers are now parrying questions about exactly which true events are involved. Yet few doubt that the inspiration is the case of Tom and Eileen Lonergan, American tourists who disappeared off Australia's Great Barrier Reef on January 25, 1998. The couple had wound up in Australia after several years of travelling round the world. They had met and married at Louisiana State University, where Eileen had taken up scuba diving and persuaded Tom to join in her hobby. For two years they had taught for the Peace Corps in the Pacific island country of Tuvalu, before spending a further year in Fiji.

They were planning to travel round the world before heading home, but first the couple were determined to visit the Barrier Reef. In Port Douglas, an upmarket diving and sailing town towards the end of the road north through Queensland, they decided to take a day trip on a 26-passenger boat, the Outer Edge. For A$160, the five crew would take them for three dives on the ribbon reefs, a stack of broad shoals that run along the seaward ramparts of the Barrier Reef, 40 miles offshore. On their third dive, round about 3pm, they headed off together and were last spotted swimming calmly 12m down. When they came to the surface after less than an hour underwater, the Outer Edge had gone.

Being left behind on a dive is not an instant death sentence. Paul Lucas, a tourist from Leicester with less than 10 dives under his belt, survived for 40 hours in stormy seas in January 2000, after he was left behind by a dive boat in northern New South Wales. A diver is wearing an inflatable lifejacket and has the air to inflate it in a tank strapped to their back. The danger in the blazing heat of tropical Queensland is that, without fresh water, someone floating in the middle of the ocean may dehydrate long before help can arrive.

The day after the incident the Outer Edge brought another tour party to the area, and one diver found six dive weights resting on the bottom. Oblivious to what had happened the previous day, a crew member described the find as a bonus.

At that point Tom and Eileen might still have been alive just a few miles away, using the empty dive belt to bind themselves together. They certainly appear to have survived the night: several months later a fisherman 100 miles north of the site found a dive slate which records their thoughts as dawn broke that morning. In a wobbly scrawl faded by months in the water, Tom Lonergan had written: "[Mo]nday Jan 26; 1998 08am. To anyone [who] can help us: We have been abandoned on A[gin]court Reef by MV Outer Edge 25 Jan 98 3pm. Please help us [come] to rescue us before we die. Help!!!"

Other clues offered tantalising glimpses of what might have happened. A wetsuit of Eileen's size washed up in north Queensland in early February; scientists measuring the speed of barnacle growth on its zip estimated that it was lost on January 26. Tears in the material around the buttocks and armpit had apparently been caused by coral.

Inflatable dive jackets marked with Tom and Eileen's names were later washed ashore north of Port Douglas, along with their tanks - still buoyed up by a few remnants of air - and one of Eileen's fins. None showed any signs of the damage you would expect from a violent end, suggesting that the couple were not the victim of a shark attack, as the film suggests. Experts at the inquest speculated that, drifting helplessly back and forth on the tides in the building heat of the tropical sun, the couple may have been driven delirious by dehydration and have voluntarily struggled out of their cumbersome outfits. Without the buoyancy provided by their dive jackets and wetsuits, they would not have been able to tread water for long.

Publicity surrounding the case spelled disaster for the Queensland dive industry. Nearly 50,000 people work in Queensland's Barrier Reef tourist trade, which is worth A$4.3bn and hosts nearly 4m day trips every year. High-profile horror stories could irrevocably taint the image of local operators. Worse still, this had not been simply an unavoidable accident. Dive boat crews are meant to count every diver into and out of the water and then carry out a further count when the boat leaves the dive site, but somehow the Lonergans had slipped through the net.

Outer Edge skipper Jack Nairn said that he had ordered a crew member to carry out the count, and that the numbers had become confused because two passengers had jumped into the water halfway through. In any case, no one seems to have noticed that two sets of diving gear were missing as the boat steamed back to Port Douglas, nor was any alarm raised the following day when the Outer Edge returned to the same spot. It was only two days later, when Nairn found a bag containing the Lonergans' wallet and passports on the boat, that the alarm was raised. By that time, Tom and Eileen would probably already have died.

I for one love the water, but I do have to admit that wading out in the ocean can be a little alarming and after watching this film may even make my heart beat a little faster than it should. I watched this with my wife last night, my wife is one who HATES the water and so was even more frightened than I was. Everyone pretty much knows the synopsis of the film, couple gets left at sea when scuba-diving with a group and spend a day and a night drifting along with no sign of land, ever...the whole idea behind the story (being based LOOSLY on true facts) is eerie in itself, and there are MANY scenes when just the sight of sharks swimming underneath our couple sends chills up and down your spine. I think that it delivers for what it is. It's a low budget film that is supposed to make you shiver in the realness that it portrays. This film feels much like a home movie and thats what makes it frightening...when bad things happen it feels as though it's really happening...