Open Water
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- An open water jump is also an obstacle found in the equestrian sport of show jumping.
| Open Water | |
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| Directed by | Chris Kentis |
| Produced by | Laura Lau |
| Written by | Chris Kentis |
| Starring | Blanchard Ryan Daniel Travis Saul Stein Estelle Lau Jon-Damon Charles |
| Distributed by | Lions Gate Films |
| Release date(s) | August 20, 2004 |
| Running time | 79 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $ 130,000 |
| Followed by | Open Water 2 |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Open Water is a 2003 film inspired by a true story about an American couple, Tom and Eileen Lonergan, who in 1998 went out with a scuba diving group, Outer Edge Dive Company, into the South Pacific. They were accidentally left behind due to a faulty head count taken by the dive boat crew. There were twenty-six other divers and five crew members, all of whom failed to notice that the couple were not on board.
The film was financed by director Chris Kentis and his wife, producer Laura Lau, both avid scuba divers. The movie originally cost $130,000 to make and was later bought by Lions Gate Films for $2.5 million after its screening at the Sundance Film Festival.
Taglines::
- Drifting into cinemas this summer.
- Who will save you?
- Don't get left behind.
- Inspired by true events.
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[edit] Plot summary
Daniel Kintner (Daniel Travis) and Susan Watkins (Blanchard Ryan) are an unmarried couple frustrated that their hard-working lives don't allow them to spend much time together. They decide to pack up and head out on a tropical vacation to help relieve their everyday stress and improve their relationship.
On their second day, Daniel and Susan set out on the open water for a SCUBA dive. Some on board their boat express nervousness about sharks, but the dive instructor jokes it off. There is a head count, and the total is recorded as twenty.
Daniel and Susan (who are each other's dive partners), hop in the water when they arrive, along with the rest of the divers. One man, Seth, has forgotten his mask and stays on board. Daniel and Susan decide to separate from the group while underwater. A woman who's having problems with deep diving returns early with her partner. There are already three people back on the boat. This is recorded as 'three' back on board. After this tally, the woman who just surfaced offers her mask to Seth and he decides to dive with the woman's dive partner. The tally is not changed, because the man taking the tally did not see this happen. Half an hour later, the rest of the group returns to the boat. Going by the two earlier tallies, the total on board comes to twenty, though in reality it is eighteen. The boat leaves, and no one notices that Daniel and Susan are not aboard.
Soon after the boat leaves, Daniel and Susan return to the surface and look for the boat. They believe the boat will return for them, assuming someone on board would notice their belongings.
Stranded at sea, Daniel and Susan rehash old disputes, bicker about the wisdom of swimming for boats seen in the distance, battle bouts of hunger and mental exhaustion, and notice sharks circling them below the surface.
Eventually, more sharks appear. When both Daniel and Susan are stung by passing jellyfish, Daniel remarks that "sharks are attracted to wounded fish."
Later, a shark bites Daniel, and the wound begins to bleed profusely. Susan removes her diving belt, and uses it to apply pressure to Daniel's wound. That night, during a strong storm, the shark returns and again attacks Daniel, killing him.
The next morning, the pair's belongings are finally found on the boat, and a search begins. Meanwhile, Susan, having held on to Daniel through the night, releases him into the water when she finally realizes he is dead. His body continues to float nearby and soon the sharks start to bite his body. Susan finds something about the movement of his body (the odd bobbing) suspicious. After putting on her goggles, she looks under the surface, and sees several sharks circling her in the water. Susan apparently decides to commit suicide, as she stops trying to keep herself afloat, and allows herself to sink underwater. The audience is never told or shown her fate, but we are left to assume she fell victim to the sharks, as Daniel had.
Open Water is notable, in that the filmmakers used living sharks, as opposed to the mechanical ones used in Jaws or the computer-generated fish in Deep Blue Sea. The movie seems to strive to present authentic shark behavior, rather than the more commonplace stereotypical exaggeration of shark behavior seen in some other films.
[edit] Trivia
The two main characters, Susan Watkins and Daniel Kintner, have the same last names as the first two victims in the movie Jaws.
[edit] See also
- Open Water 2 (2007)
