“Tiburón.” That’s the word Nancy (Blake Lively) couldn’t find in The Shallows. Yes, my limited Spanish could have helped her a great deal. Of course, I probably would have said, “¡Cuidado, llamas!” long before arriving at a helpful Spanish translation, but I’m within the Venn Diagram of “possible helpfulness” when warning Mexicans of a shark attack.
Geez, if we’d only built that wall. Am I right?
Actually, that helps her not at all, as Nancy is already in Mexico, having escaped her Galveston, TX home. She’s found the secluded beach her mother visited decades earlier and she plans to surf it for a while in an effort to either escape responsibility or remember mom; I’m not terribly clear on her motivation. She’s also lost her flaky companion; so she’s alone … in a foreign country … where she doesn’t speak the language well … in a deliberately hidden locale … where nobody knows where she got to … and nobody is likely to go looking for her or discover she’s missing for several days, possibly weeks. Well, yeah, other than that, this personal excursion seems like a great idea. Surfs up, señorita.
Nancy does have two things going for her: 1) a phone, which will be of no use on the beach when she’s in the water and 2) two newly discovered surf buddies – also of no use when they take off leaving a secluded romantic seafood dinner for she and her new companion. Well, mostly for her new companion. Say, would you call a human in a wetsuit “surf” or “turf?”
Don’t quite know how or why, but Nancy managed to ignore the huge whale carcass in the extended lagoon. This is why there’s a great big shark present, and he’s pissed because of a bad piercing — buddy, you gotta have that thing done by a professional; even if you live in salt water, that’s gonna get infected. The shark makes no bones about his ill intentions towards Miss Nancy, and sooner than later, she’s badly injured and marooned on a series of low-tide-appearing rocks. Nancy is only a few hundred feet from shore, but it may well be miles with a motivated shark in her path.
The Shallows didn’t ask much of Blake Lively, which is good. She can play scared, but asking her to mix that with plotting or inner resolve is a bit of a stretch. Her main qualification for landing this role –so far as I can tell- is her ability to resemble a 
Victoria’s Secret swimsuit model on cue. “Action! Yes, good, good. Yes, you still look like you should be modeling underwear. Definitely. Yes. No, wait, The wetsuit isn’t helping Let’s work with that. How about ½ a wetsuit?”
This film speaks to the genius of plot simplicity. You don’t need the heroine to do much; the shark is going to carry the film. People like me will be reminded of Tremors, a great example of the simple-yet-genius genre. The key to any horror film is geographic isolation. If you can reduce a horror plot to problem solving, you’re going to win most of those battles, even when the CGI shark is over-the-top. And the shark is waaaaay over-the-top here; the beast from The Shallows made Jaws look like a guy interested in maybe some hors d’oeuvres and a game of canasta. Horror-wise, exaggerated is better than tame; this film will keep you, dare I say? Lively.
When surf is up, gotta watch your back
You never know when he’ll attack
When fish are pissed
You’re on the list
As one Great White Scooby Snack
Rated PG-13, 86 Minutes
D: Jaume Collet-Serra
W: Anthony Jaswinski
Genre: SHARK!!
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Shark Boy
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Lava Girl
