Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Insatiable Ocean, February 8, 2002
"I'll start at the beginning, as all stories must..."
- Celia (Lynn Redgrave)
A good story has the power to heal and if you have seen The Secret of Roan Inish, you will enjoy this story even more. You are immediately drawn into this haunting tale by a rather moody Claire Mackay (Julia Brendler), a grieving teenage violinist who seems uninterested in living in an isolated island community off the coast of Nova Scotia.
She and her mother (Alberta Watson) arrive on the island and Claire is given a package to deliver, which she forgets at the beach. After a fight with her mother, she finds an emotional release in swimming as far as she can into the water's salty soul. The viewer might assume she has drowned as I did, but suddenly we find her washed up on the beach with the small package floating in the edges of the foamy surf at her bare feet.
Claire's brooding moods almost border on depression at first until she finds Celia (Lynn Redgrave), the owner of the package. We soon find out this is a story Celia is writing has been rejected by the publishers. As she hangs the dripping pages up to dry on the clothesline, Claire becomes rather interested in the story.
Two stories then start to intertwine like seaweed waving on the floor of the ocean. Claire and Silly's lives have so many similarities. They are almost mirrors to one another's souls. Celia knows that her story was just waiting for Claire to discover it.
Silly (Kirsten Dunst) is the girl in Celia's story who is born at the beginning of the fishing season on a cursed island, she has a strange affinity to the call of the sea. As she swims in the ocean as a very young child, her eyes change color and this startles her mother. No one in the fishing village will tell her about the ancient legend of a Viking ship that passed by so long ago and was shipwrecked near the island.
The island is cursed and every 50 years the fish dissapear and someone drowns to break the curse. Everyone on the island believes that the sea has come to take that individual as a sacrifice. While this part of the story seems pretty intense, it is played out rather mildly in the film.
This is also a love story where two people find one another quite by chance. James (Trent Ford), the son of a wealthy British Admiral is drawn to the island and falls in love with Silly. He spends most of his time camped out in a tent on the beach where they meet occasionally. James and Silly share moments of happiness, but sadly make the mistake of taking destiny in their own hands and run into a storm they cannot control.
If you love the sound of the ocean, the feel of sand between your toes and a salty breeze tousling your hair, this movie will take you there.
Lingering memories melt with myth to capture the
essence of beauty you expect from a fairy tale.
~The Rebecca Review
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nice fantasy tale, slow-paced but well made with beautiful scenery , October 23, 2008
_Deeply_ is a beautifully filmed if rather somber movie, ostensibly a fantasy story but with the magical elements very subtle. Really it is two stories. One is a framing modern day story, perhaps not unlike say _The Princess Bride_, though this plotline is much more serious. It focuses on a teenager who had undergone some sort of trauma while at school in Europe, a trauma only hinted at and not revealed until much later in the film. Brought to an island community (never named), one that used to thrive on fishing but is now largely uninhabited, this teenager, Claire McKay, has moved into a house with her mother and her uncle. Not only not wanting to be on the very isolated island (there is only one boat on the island and it is frequently in use), Claire doesn't want to talk to her mother or her uncle and just wants to grieve. Her mom and her uncle think they are doing the right thing by bringing her to the island, but Claire doesn't seem to think so at all.
She becomes, after a time, friends with an eccentric next neighbor, a near elderly woman by the name of Celia (played by Lynn Redgrave). Celia engaged Claire's interest by reading a story she had been writing, one that would appear to have had no ending until Claire showed up, a tragic tale set on the same island in the 1940s, one involving another teenager, a woman by the name of Silly (played by Kirsten Dunst).
The fantasy elements revolve around the founding myth of the island, that the first would-be settlers were Vikings, and one Viking couple, a man and a woman, the woman pregnant with the couple's child, perished in a storm before they could reach the island's shores. Just before they perished beneath the sea, they cursed the island, the curse being that every 50 years the fish would dry up unless a chosen one, apparently a young woman, sacrificed herself. Was Silly that chosen one that story seems to ask? Was the curse real? Is that her destiny?
The viewer never is sure if that is curse is real or not, as while the islanders take it seriously, outsiders do not, and there are little obvious magical elements except on two occasions (and even those occasions are open to interpretation).
Really for me the movie is about accepting the loss of loved ones, of moving on, perhaps dealing with survivor's guilt. The story-within-the-story, starring Ms. Dunst is a romance, at times funny, but without giving too much away is ultimately tragic.
I found the movie a bit somber at times, moody, many scenes of quiet people contemplating the sea while the waves crashed on the shore and orchestral music could be heard in the background or for the story of Silly, much of that revolved around a rebellious teenager (echoing the quieter rebellions of the grieving Claire in the present). Sometimes I found the pace a bit slow but I thought it well made. The scenery was beautiful, Ms. Dunst is a good actress, and I generally liked it.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting to say the least, May 11, 2003
Don't count on me to recap the actress names, because I don't know them, but I will admit that this film got my attention. I rented it a while back and saw it once with a friend. It isn't for everyone, that I will admit, but if you like the artistic movie that really makes you think. This is one to get. The music is wonderfully composed, and relates so well with the picture that it is...harmonious. I would recomend this movie to anyone who is interested in more than just a shoot-em-up movie. Who is looking for a beautifully written drama that will grab their attention.
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