by Joel Harley
Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. So goes Murphy’s First Law. To illustrate this point, two sisters take a diving trip to an underwater cave system off an idyllic yet remote beach. Following an underwater avalanche, May (Louisa Krause) becomes trapped under a rock 28 meters down. With the oxygen tank rapidly running out, it’s up to Drew (Sophie Lowe) to save the day.
Nothing is as easy as it looks, says Murphy’s Second Law. Drew learns this as she attempts to free her sister. But, with the clock rapidly counting down, this is where the Third Law becomes apparent – everything takes longer than you think it will.
Unfolding in real-time, director Maximilian Erlenwein’s survival thriller plays like a reverse version of last year’s Fall, using the sisters’ predicament to explore their unspoken trauma and silently fractured relationship.
Similarities to that other trapped underwater film prove surface level – The Dive is darker and deeper than 47 Meters Down. And anyway, it’s a remake of a Swedish movie from 2020, swapping the icy depths of Norway for sunnier – but no less existentially terrifying – climes. It’s intensely claustrophobic and thalassophobic at the same time but also beautifully shot – making the most of the open water and vistas of the desolate landscape that borders the water.
A particularly stifling yet wholly expansive addition to the stuck-in-a-bad-place subgenre.
The Dive had its UK premiere at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest on August 24th, 2023.
