The Shallows (2016)

The Shallows - 2016

It's Shark Week in the USA, and that means it's Shark Week on the blog, too.  Today's edition features 2016's "The Shallows", in which we see a young woman surfing in a remote location.  Things go from bad to worse when she ends up alone and the victim of a shark attack who is hungry for her blood.

The film's cast includes Blake Lively, Oscar Jaenada, Brett Cullen, and Sedona Legge.

Finding her way to a remote beach in Mexico, med student Nancy Adams is looking for a little relaxation before returning to work.  After hearing of this beach from her mother, Nancy decides to pursue her passion for surfing there.

After making sure her board is ready, Nancy hits the waves.  There are only two other surfers out that day.  They surf together for a while, enjoying the day.

Eventually, the other two surfers leave, and Nancy is now alone at the beach.  She sees a bunch of seagulls swarming over a dead whale and she moves closer to take a look.

As she turns away to catch a wave, a shark that has been feeding on the whale turns its attentions to Nancy.  It grabs Nancy's surfboard and eventually gives her a severe bite in the leg.

She quickly makes her way to a small rock formation in the middle of the secluded bay.  The only other inhabitant of it is a seagull who itself was injured by the shark.  Nancy is trapped with nowhere to go.

At night when she thinks it's safe, Nancy tries to make a break for it.  Unfortunately, she gets caught up in some fire coral which only adds to her discomfort.

When she sees someone who can help her, Nancy is horrified when he is literally bitten in two by the shark after stepping into the water.

With the shark circling and getting more daring, Nancy knows she has to do something or her time will run out.

She first tends to the seagull's wounds.  Not wanting to abandon him, she sets him adrift in the direction of the beach on a piece of broken surfboard.  (The shark has already eaten the other two surfers who came back the next day.)

She spies a buoy that she thinks she can swim to.  The only problem is a field of jellyfish swim in her way.  Not only is the shark still nearby, her rock island has now been covered by the tide.  She needs to move...and fast.

She's able to swim to the buoy while the shark is patrolling elsewhere, and only just makes it onto the platform as the shark swims near.

After being battered around on the unstable buoy, Nancy knows she's got to do something.  Ingeniously, she finds a way to destroy the shark once and for all.

She eventually makes it to land and is rescued by the man who brought her to the beach in the first place.  We also see that her seagull friend made it to land safely as well.

A while later, we see that Nancy is now a full-fledged doctor and is ready to get back in the water.  She runs her hand over her injury before rushing with her sister into the waves of Galveston, Texas.

Cast rundown:

   Blake Lively......................................Nancy Adams

   Oscar Jaenada..................................Carlos

   Brett Cullen......................................Dad

   Sedona Legge...................................Chloe Adams

And that's it for The Shallows.  Though this film is about a shark attack in the middle of a secluded bay, the actual shark only has about 4 minutes of screen time.  For those interested in our seagull friend, his name was Sully, and at the time of filming, he resided at a seagull sanctuary in Australia.

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