Reader Recommendation: Dead Calm

Chose to once again watch another movie recommendation I got ages ago, this time from twitter user @TokenUser, who actually gave me this suggestion to watch Dead Calm on the Totally Rad Show forums. It took me a while to get to it, but I figured that if it's taken me this long to watch it, a few more weeks wasn't going to make it go bad. If it went bad, I'm sure it happened a long time ago. Funny how movies can spoil over time like a piece of fruit left out in the sun for too long. I should disclose that I joyfully had no idea what to expect with this movie. My imagination had populated it with ghosts and ghost ships, but apparently, that's not what this movie is about. Hit the jump, and we can discover it together!


Yeah, so unfortunately there weren't any ghosts, even though it starts off pretty dark theme-wise, the death of their child, a seemingly abandoned black schooner on the horizon. But that's ok, because it turns out to be a really well done grounded thriller. After the tragic death of their son, Rae and John, played by Nicole Kidman and Sam Neil, decide to get away from it all and live on a sailboat. Rae is understandable distraught from the accident. Blaming herself, she can barely function without strong medication to keep herself together. One day they come across a boat drifting at sea, obviously heavily damaged by a storm. Before long, a lone man in a small rowboat comes over to them from the ship, claiming it's sinking, and that all the other people on the boat died of food poisoning. Suspicious of his story, John leaves to investigate the other ship while the stranger sleeps. John's suspicions prove accurate only too late as the man seizes the boat, effectively kidnapping Rae and leaving John stranded with the doomed schooner. Rae is on her own.

Hey! It's that guy from Jurassic Park!

The story is one of the film's strong points in my opinion. We start with the classic and tired weak woman who needs the man to protect her, and flip it around so that she has to get herself together, take care of herself, and rescue the man. What better woman to do this than Nicole Kidman?! She can be weak and frail one moment, and strong and confident in the next. She can seem sweet and utterly innocent, or she could turn around with a gun and you'd believe she'd kill you if she had to.

This brings me to the acting. Nicole Kidman is clearly the star of the show here and at times she delivers a great performance. I really liked how she transformed over the course of the movie, from damsel in distress to the hero she needs to be to deal with the situation at hand. Her attacker, played by Billy Zane, was totally convincing as a man on the edge of insanity. He too goes through phases, from victim, to nice guy, to utter creep and violent attacker. I don't leave Sam Neil last because he doesn't do a good job, because he does, he just doesn't have that many lines since he's mostly on his own. He portrays a man who knows boats, and knows what he's doing without it coming across as fake.

You're such a creep Billy Zane!

This leads to an interesting contrast between what Rae and John both have to contend with. Both have dangerous situations to deal with independently, neither one necessarily better or easier than the other. Definitely a "man vs man" and "man vs nature" situation. Both situations thrilling and interesting in their own completely unique ways.

Lastly I'd like to touch on how this movie has held up over the years, which is to say, very well. This could be a movie made today, and doesn't have any of that cheesiness that seems to come hand-in-hand with an 80's movie. Of course being an 80's movie, there has to be some nudity, no matter how brief. So if you've ever wondered what Nicole Kidman looks like, here you go. At least it fit and made sense in the plot of the film, and didn't detract from the story. In fact that part of the film really adds to her character.

If looks could kill

How can I put it any simpler than to say that I really liked this movie. Nicole Kidman was really good and I was definitely cheering for her to succeed at the end. Likewise, I really liked the situation Sam Neil's character was left in and really appreciated how much he seemed to act with common sense. He was either doing what I would do, or he did something even better than I could think of, making him seem really smart and knowledgeable. Then there is of course the great role reversal which was really refreshing. I definitely recommend this movie, it totally holds up and had a GREAT ending! Check it out!