I ‘RECUPERATI’ di ‘CelluloidPortraits’ - RECENSIONE ITALIANA e PREVIEW in ENGLISH by PETER DEBRUGE (www.variety.com) - Dal 25 AGOSTO
(The Shallows; USA 2016; Thriller Horror drammatico; 87'; Produz.: Columbia Pictures/Ombra Films/Weimaraner Republic Pictures; Distribuz.: Warner Bros. Pictures Italia)
Cast: Blake Lively (Nancy) Óscar Jaenada (Carlos) Brett Cullen (Padre) Sedona Legge (Chloe) Janelle Bailey (Madre) Angelo Josue Lozano Corzo (Surfista) Joseph Salas (Surfista)
Musica: Marco Beltrami
Costumi: Kym Barrett
Scenografia: Hugh Bateup
Fotografia: Flavio MartÃnez Labiano
Montaggio: Joel Negron
Effetti Speciali: Ronald Grauer (supervisore)
Casting: Ben Parkinson
Scheda film aggiornata al:
03 Luglio 2022
Sinossi:
IN BREVE:
Nancy (Blake Lively) sta facendo surf da sola di fronte a una spiaggia isolata quando viene attaccata da un grande squalo bianco che le impedisce di tornare a riva. Anche se solo 200 metri la separano dalla salvezza, dovrà mettere in gioco tutta la sua forza di volontà per sopravvivere.
SYNOPSIS:
A mere 200 yards from shore, surfer Nancy is attacked by a great white shark, with her short journey to safety becoming the ultimate contest of wills.
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
Commento critico (a cura di PATRIZIA FERRETTI)
Un ‘One Woman Show’ nel complesso riuscito, con una Blake Lively all’altezza del ruolo. Regia motivata con qualche flessione di troppo e caduta in stile melò del tutto superflua. Di contro al complessivo verismo delle riprese, il surrealismo di uno squalo bianco: innaturalmente aggressivo e perseverante nella caccia alla donna, del tutto fedele agli standard cinematografici spielberghiani
Una bella sfida per l’avvenente Blake Lively che si lancia anima e corpo - stupendo e ripreso a dovere! - in un ruolo d’eccellenza prettamente maschile: Robert Redford in All is Lost-Tutto è perduto e Tom Hanks in Cast Away hanno fatto da apripista. E ora c’è Nancy/Lively che è ben determinata a raggiungere una spiaggia isolata e particolare nel profondo Messico per stare un po' da sola, a tu per tu con i suoi ricordi: la location è quella adorata dalla madre, morta da poco, che si trovava lì quando era incinta di
Le riprese di Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan), straordinarie, inneggiano al paradiso all’inizio, tanto quanto all’inferno successivo, facendo persino del virtuosismo visivo, di grande effetto estetico, sui titoli di coda.
usare il suo cellulare per chiamare aiuto, l'uomo difatti la deruba di quello e di quanto ricava dal suo zaino, salvo essere punito di lì a poco per l’ingordigia di accaparrarsi anche la sua tavola da surf, ancora in balìa delle acque. Uno tra i pochi sentieri secondari che si innestano nel corpo narrativo principale di Paradise Beach-Dentro l’incubo.
Insomma, nello spettacolo assicurato, ci piace intravedere una linfa di romantica spiritualità che serpeggia sull’ala spezzata di un gabbiano: presente sullo stesso scoglio e ugualmente ferito, non si discosta mai da lei. Una costante presenza (metaforica?) al suo fianco che sembra ribadire significati altri sull’epilogo di questo incubo. Epilogo che, decretando la struttura circolare del film, si riallaccia con l’inizio della storia, quando mentre gioca a pallone sulla battigia di quella spiaggia, un bambino scorge e raccoglie quel fatidico casco con micro videocamera.
who faces off against a killer shark in this far-from-deep summer scarefest.
Most shark attacks occur in less than six feet of water. In many ways, that fact alone is scarier than just about anything in Jaume Collet-Serra’s “The Shallows†— unless you count the color of Blake Lively’s face, which some visual effects flunky inadvertently turned a seasick shade of green when digitally superimposing it onto surf double Isabella Nichols.
Like “The Deep†— the schlocky 1977 Peter Benchley adaptation immortalized by the sight of Jacqueline Bisset in a wet T-shirt — Collet-Serra’s more aptly named film recognizes that audiences tend to be a lot more interested in water-logged thrillers when there’s a pretty actress at stake. As the sexy alternative to the protagonists of “All Is Lost†(Robert Redford is too old) and “Life of Pi†(Suraj Sharma is too young), Lively plays Nancy, a med school student
who faces off against a great white shark just a few yards from shore. While the movie goes out of its way to stress that Nancy survives as long as she does because of her intelligence, it’s her beach bod and bikini that will account for 90% of this thriller’s summer box office.
Lively may have been cast primarily for her physique, but she proves a compelling heroine all the same. Coping with a personal tragedy and looking for some alone time, Nancy seeks out her late mother’s favorite Mexican beach — a location so secret the crew evidently located it somewhere in Queensland, Australia. Normally, this is the sort of pilgrimage someone might make in order to scatter a loved one’s ashes, but Nancy comes empty-handed, except for her surfboard and smartphone. The latter serves two purposes: to deliver bare-bones exposition and to cross-promote parent company Sony’s latest high-tech gizmo
— a reminder that most modern-day horror movies can be “solved†simply by calling the police.
Unfortunately for her, Nancy leaves her stylish Swiss Army phone on the beach and swims out to catch some waves. It’s a beautiful cove, and Collet-Serra and his camera crew (including surf d.p. Dwayne Fetch) lavish us with a gorgeous (if somewhat abstractly cut together) hang-10 montage featuring nice moves by Nancy and two unnamed Mexican surfers (one of whom wears his head-mounted GoPro camera straight into the shark’s mouth — a teaser offered as the movie’s half-effective opening thrill).
There’s something slightly off about the editing in the first act, signaling early on that Collet-Serra hasn’t spent nearly enough time studying Steven Spielberg. What a difference a John Williams score makes, especially when compared to the relatively suspense-less, all-digital stylings of composer Marco Beltrami, whose background music sounds like broken sonar equipment. As for Collet-Serra,
not only does he fail to master the creepy shark’s-eye view, but he even botches that other Spielberg signature: the lingering, wide-eyed reaction shot. When Nancy first arrives on the beach, her mouth falls open, and instead of holding on her face, and then dramatically revealing what she sees, editor Joel Negron cuts to a fly-over helicopter view of the entire cove.
At times, it’s hard to tell whether “The Shallows†is trying to sell a tropical vacation, a Sony Xperia phone, or a fantasy date with Lively, but in any case, the film looks virtually indistinguishable from a slick, high-end commercial. The camera is right there at bust level when Nancy strips off her shirt to reveal a fluorescent orange bikini, and it shamelessly accentuates her curves as she paddles out to meet her fate, as if begging us to question which is more predatory: the shark or the lecherous
gaze “The Shallows†affords its audience. The answer arrives soon enough in the film’s single most terrifying shot, in which the great white’s silhouette appears backlit against the last wave Nancy ever surfs — a vision as startling as the knife-wielding old lady who pulled back the shower curtain in “Psycho.â€
The encounter leaves a nasty gash in Nancy’s leg, though she reacts quickly enough to avoid the fate that awaits the others who dare swim into the shark’s feeding ground. In the melee, a seagull also barely escapes a fatal encounter with the shark’s jaws, and over the course of the remaining hour, that bird becomes Nancy’s only companion. Together, they take refuge on a bit of rock located perhaps 200 feet from shore, tending to their wounds and feasting on tiny crabs, while hoping not to get eaten themselves. Depending on how spiritual one wants to get, the seagull
could be seen as Nancy’s late mother, sent down to watch over her during this test of faith — not a bad way to interpret the dynamic, considering how lean the film is on context or backstory. Among the little we know about Nancy is the fact that her mom’s recent passing seems to have cramped her will to live, and there’s nothing like a near-death encounter to rekindle those survival instincts.
“The Shallows†remains mostly an exercise in pure cinema, wherein action drives the narrative and audiences are expected to extrapolate Nancy’s thoughts by watching how she handles any given situation. In the final stretch, logic snaps like the rusty chains holding the beach’s lone buoy in place, though there’s no denying that the movie is more exciting when Nancy is in the water than hiding out on that bit of reef, talking to a seagull. While observing Nancy’s problem-solving
skills ought to come in handy should audiences ever find themselves in her position, the movie will undoubtedly save more lives simply by scaring audiences away from the water. After all, if the shallows aren’t safe, what is?
Secondo commento critico (a cura di La parola al film)