Compared to the eerie scene in The Birds where the birds roost waiting on the jungle gym, The Shallows is as bulky and bloated as the dead whale that Nancy climbs onto for safety. A seagull stranded with her on the rock even seems like a stand-in for Hitchcock himself the bird master looking on approvingly with his head cocked, and even getting in the occasional peck.Įven if Hitchcock would approve, he wouldn’t feel threatened. In recompense for her folly, her virgin blood is spread across the water, for the delight of sharks and viewers alike. The film is a brilliantly constructed mechanism for torturing a skilled, independent woman who has clearly waded out of her depth. Would-be rescuers are dismembered, ships pass blandly in the distance, the life-saving buoy crumbles in Nancy’s hand. Salvation is proffered and then whisked away with split-second, mean-spirited timing. Hungry, toothy sea creature and hungry, toothy director salivate together at the anticipated carnage.Ĭollet-Serra is a talented director The Shallows slides across the screen as gracefully and swiftly as its finned antagonist. Director Jaume Collet-Serra’s winking camera-work repeatedly gives you the shark’s eye view of Nancy paddling oblivious on her board. As in The Birds, the director and the fauna seem to conspire together against the blond, beautiful heroine. The creature injures Nancy while she’s surfing and then traps her on a barely person-sized outcrop of rock. In what may be a deliberate Hitchcock homage, Nancy is knocked off her board by a brief seagull swarm – but for the most part the malevolent natural world is represented, not by improbably aggressive birds, but by an improbably aggressive and determined shark. In The Shallows (out now in the US and 12 August in the UK), the isolated vacation spot is not a California seaside town but a Mexican beach. It leads “bossy” Nancy out to an isolated vacation spot, and lets the natural world show her who is really boss. Hitchcock, working through his catspaws (birdspaws?) terrifies his heroine, bloodies her, and finally reduces her to catatonic silence. The film leads her out to an isolated vacation spot, where birds mysteriously start to attack. Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) famously uses the natural world to punish the sexually adventurous single and gorgeous Melanie Daniels ( Tippi Hedren).
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