Dead Calm Review

Review of Dead Calm (1989) by screenqueeen: 👍 4/5

the thirteenth night in the lonesome hooptober day 27 film 23 cat: 0

75/100

woah what a weird little flick. never have i been more entertained by a movie that insists on making Kidman and Zane alone together for as long as it possibly can. after one poor attempt to jump between vessels Sam Neill becomes effectively adrift, separated from his wife for so long i'm not sure he got a lot of lines until the final act. Zane's Hughie is everything in this, making me think he would have taken such interesting turns as Tom Ripley. entering the film shirtless and in a straw hat, exiting it through the hole of a sail and in one of the most incredible codas to come from a lucky shot.

speaking of lucky shots this movie blesses us with a completely unnecessary but wholly appreciated sequence of the wife's car accident where Sam and Nicole's kid is launched through the windshield of the family car. while writing this i had the rating set to 3.5 stars but in recollection of the jaw-dropping bookend sequences and how much they cheered me up i had to bump it to an even 4. bravo.