It's been over a decade since Open Water, the vaguely enjoyable lost-in-the-ocean thriller that wowed Sundance audiences, was released and Jaume Collet-Serra's upcoming thriller The Shallows seems to (pun intended) tread similar waters. At least that's what I first thought when the first trailer for the film arrived online with the seemingly just-add-water plot: surfer lady (Blake Lively) gets stranded on rock with a hungry shark, roughly the size of Dwayne Johnson, circling her real estate in hopes of catching a late lunch.
The new trailer for the film, however, expands the story a bit and adds a few layers of thematic ideas to the plot that, under the expert direction of Collet-Serra, might just make The Shallows a genuine delight. First of all, we learn that Lively's character is seemingly getting over the passing of a loved one - her mother, I assume, but who knows? - and that she has a little sister waiting on her to return from her surfing expedition. Second, the shark has plenty more boarders to chow down on then just waiting on Lively to jump in the water, and her character is a survivor with a plan to outwit the finned killing machine.
Her denial of the interests of two well-sculpted surfer boys, and the death of a GoPro-crowned sportsman also hint at a sort of symbolic, satirical undercurrent to all of this, which could make the difference between jump-scare cheapness and heady thrills. We'll have to wait until June 29th to find out, but this movie has already made a sizable jump up the ladder of my most anticipated summer movies.
Here's the brand new trailer for The Shallows:
Here's the official synopsis for The Shallows:
In the taut thriller The Shallows, when Nancy (Blake Lively) is surfing on a secluded beach, she finds herself on the feeding ground of a great white shark. Though she is stranded only 200 yards from shore, survival proves to be the ultimate test of wills, requiring all of Nancy's ingenuity, resourcefulness, and fortitude.
