Mergulho no Escuro

Yet another sad attempt at turning a book into a film. I discovered the book by accident and went about encouraging my friends to read it because the characters, story, and compelling ending needed to be discussed. This film lends itself to no discussion beyond asking for what purpose the things that were changed, especially in character, were changed. By significantly changing the characters, especially Kiroy (the character in the book would NEVER have gone chasing after Carrie), the film lost all of the soul of the book. The greatest moment in the book, when Carrie gets the sewing machine in the mail, wasn't even in the film. Further, the film became less about one woman's journey to discover who she is and more about her dealing with her fiancé's accident. Definitely not recommended. Read the book.

I haven't read the book, so I can't comment on whether the adaption was good or bad. The Dive from Clausen's Pier was in my opinion a good movie on the whole. It's not normally my kind of movie, I watched it mostly because of Michelle Trachtenberg. The story is about how an accident changes the lives of a group of people, and especially Mike Mayor (Will Estes) and his girlfriend Carrie Beal (Michelle Trachtenberg). It was in my opinion a bit too short, and I wish some characters could have been explored and developed more. Other than that, it was good.

I was pleased to see Trachtenberg in this movie, and from all her film and TV works, I consider this to be one of her best performances, possibly to share the first spot with Mysterious Skin. She's not just a beautiful face, she's a talented actress and I believe that with time she will grow and develop even more.

'The Dive From Clausen's Pier' is the story of Carrie, a young woman who takes off to New York after her fiancé, Mike Mayor, is paralyzed in a diving accident. Although, the accident isn't the real reason she leaves. Even before the accident, her feelings for Mike were slipping. She does what she feels she has to, to find happiness. – The story itself is less than appealing to me, so this obviously isn't my type of movie. But in spite of that, I still managed to enjoy it.

Trachtenberg (Carrie) puts on a surprisingly good performance. Coming into the movie I was honestly expecting her to be the weakest link. On top of her less than stellar performance in EuroTrip, she was also the worst character ever conceived on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But she managed to pull off a wonderful performance, particularly at the beginning of the movie. Will Estes (Mike Mayor) also put on a great performance; they played off of each other really well. In my opinion, Will and Michelle had a lot more chemistry than Michelle and Sean (who plays Killroy). That's where the movie starts slipping a bit, Carrie's relationship with Killroy is a bit unrealistic, not to mention lame. The entire "Killroy hiding something from Carrie" arc was pretty annoying. It's just, after the first 30 minutes, the rest of the movie falls flat for me. I enjoy stories where people are forced to deal with things, not run away from them. Which is why I enjoyed the ending too, but it didn't seem as poignant as it should be. The monologue at the end, which was supposed to be a beautiful sentiment, was actually lame to no end.

Even so, the movie wasn't nearly as horrible as I thought it was going to be. It's above average in terms of TV movies, but that really isn't saying much.

4.5

I didn't read the book, didn't even know there was 1 till I got on here, sorry. Just got the movie for Will, he did a good job in fact I just fast forward through the whole movie just to see his scenes. Other than that the film isn't worth it. Michelle is just to fake and she kisses weird in this movie. They said that Will actually tried to study how to be paralyzed for the movie. Thanks to the other views I actually found out if they get back together or not cause the movie ends terribly, and you don't know for sure if they do or not just watching the movie. I didn't even realize it was a Lifetime movie, I don't care for Lifetime or Hallmark, they're all basically the same movie different characters/settings.

It's nice to know that everyone has doubts about decisions they have made in their lives.. This movie was very uplifting from the point of "Mike" finding out that he COULD live without "Carrie", and eventually forgive her unforgivable deed!! Running when the going got tough! And to discover that not everyone in the movies, "Carrie" can be a hero all of the time. She got scared, and she gave up everything, because of her fear. She grew emotionally and finally figured out that there was just no way to have a real future with "Kilroy" or anyone else until she finally did the right thing and face her past. I don't think that running away is the right answer, but sometimes it is easier to face things after the dust has settled a bit. Good movie, would recommend watching it. Would have liked to see a different ending though.