47 METERS DOWN
UK, US, Dominican Republic, 2017, 89 minutes, Colour.
Mandy Moore, Claire Holt, Matthew Modine, Chris Johnson, Yani Gelman, Santiago Segura.
Directed by Johannes Roberts.
47 meters down could be in a shaft, a deep hole, the sea. In this case it is the sea, specifically the ocean off the Mexico coast (although the scenes were filmed in the Dominican Republic, hotels, beaches, the open sea).
Sharks have frequently been the symbols of terror – as well as providing real terror. Even prior to Jaws, there were a number of thriller films with shark in the title, Shark, Shark’s treasure… In fact, the attraction to screenwriters to provide shark and comparable stories continues, from pot boiling stories like the Sharknado television films to the Blake Lively 2016 fear-fostering The Shallows.
One of the main features of this film is that after 20 minutes, two young women go down in a cage and that for the next 55 minutes both the audience and the women spend it completely underwater.
The underwater sequences are effective and it is quite a surprise (for those who remain to read the credits) to discover that it was all done in an underwater studio in Basildon, in England.
The story is pretty straightforward because the main attention is given to the dangers and the peril. Two sisters go for a holiday to Mexico, one, Kate (Claire Holt) the adventurous type, the other, Lisa (Mandy Moore) the older sister, a touch envious of her outgoing sister, and who is experiencing a breakup, from the only man that she was ever attached to. How much there
The director has a nice touch, the opening credits underwater, but only in the swimming pool, and a glass of red wine being tipped over and staining the water, foreboding blood.
The rest of the plot is quite simple. The women meet two attractive locals who persuade them to go out to sea and to go diving in a protective cage. The captain of the boat is played by Matthew Modine. Well, the two men go down and all is well. We know that when the two women go down, all will not be well. There are lots of explanations about how much air will be available, how to be restrained in breathing, how to read the warning signals, and a lot of dialogue reassuring everyone that everything will be okay and it will have the time of their lives!
It is not too long before they see sharks circling and are amazed in admiration, but then a shark gobbles up the camera that they drop. Then the chain of the winch holding the cage breaks and down they go, 47 meters.
For the next hour or so, we share the women’s terrors, initial panic, an ability to keep calm, some radio contact, but fears that the boat might have left them, sharks, of course, some possible help and, again of course, hopes raised and then dashed, more peril.
The two women take it in turns to be panicky then fearless with radio contact at times and Matthew Modine being reassuring – the warning against coming to the surface too quickly because of the bends as well is possible nitrogen poisoning after plugging in to relief air tanks underwater.
The film plays a dramatic trick at the ending – but it works. And it is all to do with the solution of how the two women are to be rescued.
Needless to say, but still worth saying, that this is not a film for any audience who feels claustrophobic underwater let alone vicariously experiencing some sense of hopelessness and prospective drowning and the ever present sharks.
It certainly is effective of its kind.
1. The popularity of shark and terror stories? Diving? Drama, thriller?
2. The Dominican Republic standing in for Mexico? Hotels, beaches, the sea?
3. The underwater photography, almost an hour of underwater photography – and in the underwater studios at Basildon, UK?
4. The title, the reality of the depth? The cage, the diving, air cylinders, breathing, microphone communication? The cage and the winch? The beauty, the fish, the sharks, the sea floor, light and darkness, the issue of the bends and nitrogen affecting the brain? Realistic?
5. The situation, Kate and Lisa, the credits and the wine in the pool, intimating blood? Lisa and the breakup with Stuart? Lisa telling Kate the truth, Kate urging Lisa to go out, the dancing, meeting the local men, the kiss?
6. Kate, daring Lisa for the dive, apprehensions, going to the wharf, the men, Taylor and the crew?
7. The continual reassurances? The men and their dive, all successful?
8. The women going down, the view, the photos, dropping the camera, eaten by the shark? The winch chain snapping, the falling, going down to 47 meters? The issue of time, supply of air? The continual referring to the statistics about air remaining?
9. The two women, the reactions, fear, Lisa and panic, Kate keeping calm? Going out, the difficulties with getting the helmet off? Making the contact, the advice? Initially feeling the abandon, thinking the ship had gone? The torch, Javier, discovering him dead? The range of the sharks, their size, circling? The women getting in and out of the cage? Kate, the new winch, connecting it? The air cylinders? The flares?
10. Kate, her character, courage, the sharks, her injury, death?
11. Lisa, the fall of the broken cage, hurt leg, the effort to get it out? Issues of air? Going to get the torch? Her return, try to keep contact with Kate?
12. The dramatic effect of the double ending? Lisa getting out, getting Kate, the flares, the radio communication, Taylor urging them to go slowly, the flares dying, dropping the flares? The sudden view of the sharks?, The risk of the bends, with Taylor, the men pulling the women out, the sharks at their legs? The injuries? On board? Lisa and her hallucination?
13. The actual ending, the Coast Guard arrival, the men going down, finding Lisa, in the cage, her brain damage, hallucinations, bringing her to the surface?
14. Effective as a thriller? Caution?
