Based on true events, Open Water follows an American couple, Daniel and Susan, who go on an island holiday to get a break from their workaholic lifestyles. Upon arrival at their hotel, we learn that Daniel and Susan’s relationship is under strain from their stressful lifestyles, and they need a vacation even more than they realized. The next morning, the loving and rested couple, who are certified scuba divers, board a local dive boat for an underwater tour of the reef. The boat is crowded with other vacationers, and due to a series of innocent miscommunications and a distracted crew, the couple is, after only forty minutes or so underwater, accidentally left behind. What follows is the story of their ordeal: cold, alone and miles from land, the couple is adrift in shark-infested waters. What happen next is an ordeal of the mind as the couple at first just think that they drifted off course and the boat will soon come looking for them. But as the day progresses they begin to realize that rescue might no happen anytime soon and that it may be a struggle to just survive as sharks begin to surround them and look to them as their possible next meal.

This is the kind of movie that makes you mad at the ending because even though it was probably the right ending and the most fitting as it is based on a true story you cannot help but be angered because you were hoping for it to end another way. It was also the kind of ending that everyone sat through all the credits to just make sure that is how they meant to end it, the last movie I remembered doing that for was the Blair Witch Project. But unlike Blair Witch I loved the movie up until the end, where as I hated every single moment of the Blair Witch. That’s all I can say about how the movie left me feeling after I left the theatre without spoiling it for everyone else. The best thing about this movie is easily the cinematography as it is done so well you almost feel like you are amongst the waves with the sharks circling around you. The movie cast a feeling of dread and the vast openness of the ocean just by the way it was shot, for example at night the screen is dark except with lighting crashes across the sky making you feel like you were right there. Also you never totally see the sharks, which I love as it is like they are circling and you never know where they are or when they might strike next. The movie would have been incredible had it ended like I wanted it to, but all the same the movie was still really good and definitely worth seeing.
3.5 stars out of 5