The Dive (2023) Dir: Maximilian Erlenwein

Ridley Coote
19 hours ago
2 min read

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For those of us who aren't keen on being in the open ocean, underwater horrors can be some of the most effective of the wider genre. This Maximilian Erlenwein directed survival thriller looked like it had some potential to be fairly unnerving, in that sense. Reviews have been mediocre, but then, they often are for horror films, so I wanted to give it a try anyway.

I actually thought that this was a surprisingly pretty film, in fairness. The cinematography wasn't all that unique, but it captured the beauty of its setting and environment rather well. The colours of the water were particularly well captured, especially during the scenes that took place out of the water. Some of the underwater shots were a little hard to see, but, in fairness, that was fairly realistic.

However, things took a real downward turn from here. This film had two glaring issues, the first of which being its truly abysmal pacing. For a ninety minute film, it felt very long. A lot of this had to do with the poor writing, which dragged the story down significantly. Annoyingly, I actually felt like the narrative had some potential, but it kept tripping over itself and being unable to let things be at all nuanced.

The film was very stressful to watch, because one of the characters was extremely dumb and kept making terrible decisions. The lengths that the character went to in order to be essentially useless was infuriating. I was tense not because the film created suspense effectively, but because what was happening was so irritating.

Louisa Krause and Sophie Lowe provided some well acted moments in the odd scene here and there, but neither were consistent enough to give what could be called legitimately good performances. In their defence, the writing absolutely did not help them, but I wanted to see more out of the two actresses, because they both showed a fair amount of potential.

Overall, I found this to be an incredibly frustrating film, mainly because it could've been half-decent, but instead sunk itself into obscurity and mediocrity. I found the writing to be the biggest misdemeanor, which ultimately held the film back. The film isn't terrible, but it certainly isn't something that anyone should feel like they're missing out on.