At no point in this film did I think that Nancy made an irrational choice and so I was able to root for her the whole time. I love watching competent people work their way out of difficult situations in a manner that seems believable. It was such a breath of fresh air after all the bloated, boring blockbusters weвЂ™ve had this summer. Categories 2016 theatrical releases, action, girls/women, horror, reviews, suspense/thriller Tags Angelo Lozano Corzo, Anthony Jaswinski, Blake Lively, Jaume Collet-Serra, Jose Trujillo Salas, MacGyver, Shallows, Wild Jaws invented the summer movie 40 years ago, and it takes another shark to remind us of the electric rush that summer movies are meant to bring. Lively is so thoroughly engaging and Collet-Serra so masterful at making us feel everything she is feeling that the result is pure, simple popcorn thrills of the kind that have been all too rare this summer.

The Shallows is one of those rare movies that manages to whip up pure visceral suspense and maintain it till youвЂ™re breathless.

Now, IвЂ™m not entirely convinced that either of the two reasons the movie offers for why the shark would target and stalk Nancy are even halfway plausible, but itвЂ™s easy to forget that as a problem amidst all the delicious tension. This is one brutal and determined shark that has it in for her, and it is not going to let her go. But she is still stranded, with the beach so tantalizingly in sight and yet not another human being around, and with any thought she might have had of taking a chance swimming to shore quickly put to rest. A medical student, she is able to MacGyver a temporary fix for that gash on her leg using items that a dude most likely wouldnвЂ™t have had available to him. Director Jaume Collet-Serra ( Run All Night, Non-Stop) cannot seem to totally refrain from getting all male-gazey - we really do not need multiple lingering shots up NancyвЂ™s ass as she is paddling out on her board - but mostly he lets her be herself, not eye candy for us, as she desperately navigates her precarious situation. So hooray: after so many years of men duking it out against mountains and storms and wild beasts, The Shallows cements the arrival of вЂњwoman versus natureвЂќ as a subgenre (after Wild, the only other major film I can think of in which a woman on her own goes up against the big bad natural world). Now sheвЂ™s stranded on a rock that the retreating tide has revealed, with a nasty deep gash on her leg - itвЂ™s not clear whether this was caused by the shark nibbling at her or by a collision with the razor sharp rock, but it doesnвЂ™t matter - and the ticking countdown of the eventual high tide that will force her back into the water.ДЄ woman at the center of a story automatically brings freshness to a flickвЂ¦ In The Shallows, written by Anthony Jaswinski ( Vanishing on 7th Street), itвЂ™s just as Nancy finally truly relaxes and lets her guard down to enjoy this glorious bit of nature that the bad thing she was not anticipating happens: a shark attacks. IвЂ™ve said it before and IвЂ™ll say it again: Putting a woman at the center of a story instead of the default man automatically brings freshness to a flick, because female protagonists and their perspectives are still such novelties.

But these are the things that women worry about. The guys, of course, are completely harmless, and are gone without ever having done or said anything less than cheerful and friendly to her. Later, as the men prepare to head back to civilization, she nervously watches them on the beach as she sits on her board way out in the water, wondering if theyвЂ™re going to steal the backpack full of stuff she left on the sand. Nancy (Blake Lively: The Age of Adaline, Green Lantern) is a bit wary of the couple of guys (Jose Trujillo Salas and Angelo Lozano Corzo) sitting on their surfboards offshore, waiting for the next wave to ride in she keeps her distance even after they invite her to join them, because all women know to be vigilant around male strangers. Young American woman makes a pilgrimage (for reasons a bit melodramatic and almost entirely superfluous, but never mind) to a beach in Mexico that is pristine, secret, and deserted.

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