Breaking Surface

Going diving in the middle of winters in Norway, and in a secluded place, is not the best thing to do. Well, this is the very type of movie where the story is built to stress the viewer until the end and make them hold their breath, for that, the movie succeeds, stress free! But it stops there. Of course there are worse movies.

I made an account just for this. This movie is insultingly stupid. Tuva makes all the intelligent choices after a diving accident but is undone by the utter stupidity of her own sister. If you treat it as a slapstick comedy it's fun to watch, but as a suspense thriller it's just insulting to its viewers. The writer didn't even check with a diver to make sure it's basic assumptions about diving were correct. It also contains all kinds of unnecessary complications, plot holes, convoluted story lines it is just a mess. Need more characters characters characters otherwise the review is too short..

Initially bad decisions lead eventually to bad solutions - as the theme of any script based on creating suspense works as it is. To further on claim it pictures reality on any level among experienced professional divers is hogwash and is quite telling about the asserted "skill" and "knowledge" in the field of the writer comparing this to an actual possible scenario. Any diver - professional or amateur - shouldn't be diving at all if this is their conception of events that even could occur during any dive if thoroughly planned and implemented properly. Rather consider this as but a movie.

I really like survival thrillers like this one and I thought the idea was pretty interesting. The movie introduces us to two sisters and their relationship between each other and their mom. Right off the bat you get an idea how their characters work and what kind of people they seem to be.

Then the incident happens and you mostly follow Ida portrayed by Moa Gammel. She is trying her best to save her sister from drowning or is she? Because her character was so dumb that it was really annoying at times and I was just shaking my head screaming at the screen. She is the kind of character that is hard to root for and also it didn't feel like she was aware that everything she does is a play against time. I get that she is probably exhausted but she was moving so slow at times and also took time with lots of the things she does. And also this movie suffers from this rare phenomenon where everything that can go wrong does and this is something that a lot of survival thrillers do and I really dislike it because the only reason is that it drives the plot forward but most of the time the realistic aspects are left behind. There is also a scene involving a dog that many people will probably really dislike and it also didn't make sense and there was absolutely no reason for it to be in the movie. Overall it was a decent survival thriller that definitely had some flaws that could have been avoided to improve this flick. [5,8/10]

All really good films have a good start sequence like films like Cliffhanger or Vertical Limit and this film is no exception with a heart stopping sequence beneath a ship being sucked into its propellers which immediately grabs the viewers attention - well done to the director for paying attention to the rules of good movie making.

Add to that some utterly breathtaking photography and drone footage and it starts looking very good indeed.

Good acting and nice characterization, one character is focused, extremely intelligent and capable then we have the other one who obviously has problems , ruined her marriage and is a bit of nightmare and of course its the intelligent and capable one who becomes trapped and so the incompetent partner is the one who has to try everything (and mostly failing) to free her sister and save the day - it has all the things a good movie should have right from the off and it does not disappoint! As one reviewer has pointed out it is actually quite close to reality when you are diving so they clearly researched before they made the movie and having seen someone with a case of the spinal bends its quite disturbing and a completely horrifying experience even for people watching it happen to someone else as i did once so this film did bring back memories!

You have to laugh at the one star reviewers complaining about the dog scene or this and that would not happen in real life and the sister was stupid - Err yes that is why she was chosen to be the one not trapped under the rock as she was the incompetent dimwit of the two sisters - what didnt you get? When are people like this going to stop reviewing movies? If everyone did the logical and sensible thing then the movie would last 10 minutes and be over immediately - its what is called making a fictional movie guys - perhaps stick to dominoes if you cannot review a movie properly or dont understand the construction of a screenplay! It really does disappoint me to see low brow reviewers giving a good film like this a 1 or 2 star review which means its the worst film you have ever seen and which this is plainly not if you have ever seen the Bad Batch with Keanu Reeves - Go watch that and then tell me you still think this is a 1 or 2!

The only disappointment is that they went for the usual hollywood happy ending when they should have ended it with what would really have happened if someone had made so many ascents and descents without the safety breaks they should take to remove nitrogen from the blood then it would really have broken movie making rules and we need this to make movies that truly shine. Overall a good exciting 7/10 nights entertainment.