Submergence | Film Review

Hey Guys x

James McAvoy and Alicia Vikander are two of my favourite actors in the entire world, so when I heard that they were making a movie together, I was so excited to see it!

This movie is about a guy called James and a girl called Danielle who, after a chance encounter on a beach, meet and fall into a quick and intense relationship. However, some time later we find James held captive in a windowless room on the eastern coast of Africa by jihadist fighters, while Danielle prepares to undertake the dangerous mission of descending into the Arctic sea. But will these lovers be able to find their way back to each other?

This film doesn't fit into a specific genre. It is part romance, part thriller, with an underwater element. While many movies benefit from having many different themes continuing at the same time, this film seems to suffer for it.

The first part of the movie, when we watch the main characters fall in love, seems promising. There is a definite chemistry between the characters, and you're rooting for them even before they share their first kiss. But sadly, their relationship doesn't develop enough in the short period of time for them to be seen as the couple that they're described as. Sharing a kiss/having a connection/having sex doesn't make a couple the next Romeo and Juliet, and this couple definitely needed an element of that for this to work. For you to believe that they're trying to get back to each other, you have to see how substantial and meaningful the relationship was, and this wasn't shown as well as it could have been.

Because of this, the longest part of the film, when they are separated, fails to be the classic 'will they get back together?' and becomes 'will they survive?', which would be fine if the romance wasn't such an integral element of the film that the audience end up failing to care about.

But even with the interesting 'will they survive' angle, eventually it becomes a story-line that you don't really care about. There's enough in it to want to see the film through to the end, but while watching, it doesn't have an impact on the viewer at all. And in addition to that, it's not the kind of film that you'll think about when the credits roll.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this film unless you have a love of the ocean (as Vikander's character does, her knowledge being one of the interesting points of the film) or are in the mood for a lackluster romance coupled with a tenuous mission of survival.

Lou