By 
Sea Fever accomplishes little beyond proving The Thing’s stranglehold on infected-people-in-an-isolated-location is so complete that the genre is essentially broken.
In this iteration, members of a fishing boat succumb one-by-one to the kiss of a giant jellyfish. That’s figurative. The jellyfish doesn’t really kiss them. This isn’t a Japanese film. It’s an Irish film.
And here I thought The TRY Channel was the extent of Irish filmmaking. Janey Mac!
Sea Fever
Sea Fever is the fever dream of writer/director Neasa Hardiman. She worked on the BBC children’s drama series Tracy Beaker Returns. That show is about a woman who uses her experience in a care home to help children in care homes learn life lessons.
From there it is a hop, skip and a jump to not be surprised Sea Fever is a taxpayer-funded film via the Irish Film Board. That makes Outposter Aldo a co-financer!
One can only imagine the size of his royalty checks. Sea Fever made $387,740 on about a $3 million budget. From a government perspective, that is a huge success.
The pitch for Sea Fever might have gone something like this:
“Let’s make The Thing at sea but replace the boring suspense and distracting special effects with something heartfelt. John Carpenter failed to bring an ‘emotional core’ to his film. We will fix that and get our picture in Good Housekeeping.”
Kathryn Bigelow walked so that Neasa Hardiman could stumble.
What do you mean I’m scruffy? Scruffy how? Like a hobo-clown?
Saturday Night Sea Fever
Sea Fever is a seven-character ensemble cast. We will start with the cannon fodder players first:
Olwen Fouere’s hair is as white as the crowd singing along to Sweet Caroline. Viewers will recognize her from Mandy, Fantastic Beasts: The Second One and The Northman. She is the cook/grandmother of the group. She is tough…but heartfelt.
Jack Hickey (Mary Shelley) plays Johnny. You might think Johnny is a womanizer, but he’s not. He is heartfelt. He may have the rough hands of a fisherman, but his touch is as light as Charles Nelson Reilly’s loafers.
Ardalan Esmaili (Domino) is Omid. The character is probably Islamic, which makes sense because he is the most sensitive, intelligent and heartfelt person in the movie.
Finally, Elie Bouakaze (uncredited in The Marvels) is Sudi. He is a lady’s man but is only pretending to be a lady’s man because he is heartfelt. You might wonder, how is that much different from Jack Hickey’s character?
Elie is not as tall. Or maybe he is. Who can tell these things anymore? We have advanced enough as a society to know there are no tall or short people, only bigots.
Together, these characters are the backbone of the crew. When they start dying one-by-one, you will look up from your phone long enough to check the clock.
I miss Lars. On the other hand, I can wear heels again…
Deep Blue Sea Fever
A main star of Sea Fever is Dougray Scott (Mission Impossible 2).
Scott was to be Wolverine at one time. One can only wonder how that might have turned out. Scott probably wouldn’t have been as concerned about dehydrating himself before his shirtless scenes.
Scott is the captain of the ship and haunted by the death of his daughter and worried about his finances. That makes him super-duper relatable, to the point where a metaphorical sign is hung above his head in every shot: look at me. I’m humanized!
But don’t get the idea that Scott is too manly. He cries and admits the real captain of the ship is his wife, played by Connie Neilsen (Gladiator).
Neilsen is haunted by the death of her daughter and worried about her finances. That makes her super-duper relatable, to the point where a metaphorical sign is hung above her head in every shot: look at me. I’m humanized!
Supposedly, Toni Collette was originally chosen for the role, but she had “scheduling” issues. Regardless, Neilsen (along with Collette) both deserve credit for aging naturally. Their faces can still emote, and it is appreciated.
Finally, Hermione Corfield (XXX: Return of Xander Cage) is the main player. She portrays a college student along for the ride to study biology…or something. She is heartfelt because she struggles under the burden of her intelligence and her unexpectedly large breasts. At times, she is positioned at juuuuust the right angles to make sure the viewer forgets she has a brain. She also wears tight jeans.
It’s very confusing. This is clearly supposed to be a mousy character that should probably be played by an overweight girl. Yet, when push comes to shove, the movie is like:
“Your nipples showed through your shirt in that shot. Perfect!”
I’m a Gen Z boss, but where’s my mini?
Jungle Sea Fever
And now to answer the question movies like Sea Fever can’t seem to figure out: why am I not as good as The Thing?
Overthinking is a big issue. Things like ‘emotional cores” are not necessarily necessary. Would Saint MacReady be a better character if we knew he took the job at Outpost 31 to pay for an operation for his sick child, a decision which also cost him his marriage. And sometimes, when things are too stressful, he looks at a picture of said child, which he carries in a locket, for the strength to go on?
Of course not. We don’t know much of anything about MacReady beyond he is a dude faced with the threat of a shapeshifting monster. Likewise, we don’t know much of anything about any of the guys at Outpost 31.
Contemplate how audacious such a thing would be to modern filmmakers. They don’t think a character is real unless that character cries over an “emotional core” at some point.
“Emotional cores” seem to work better in fiction than film. Who knows why? Maybe it is because reading is more about introspection and watching is more about projection. Movies need to leave room for the viewer to imprint themselves on a character. Sea Fever squeezes the viewer out of the experience by monopolizing the emotion, and it becomes overbearing at a certain point.
Ultimately, these are mysteries too glorious for us to fully understand.
Another reason Sea Fever doesn’t work is because the infected are not hidden threats. The only thing they accomplish is looking scared until their eyeballs explode. The infected in The Thing actively look to assimilate the others or murder them.
I haven’t seen this much hull slapping since that last hip-hop video I watched.
Sea Fever
Obviously, I don’t have a fever for Sea Fever. It is clear that everyone tries real hard and has some talent, but none of it is channeled in the proper way. They all forgot they were making a movie about people infected by jellyfish larva.
A movie about people infected by jellyfish larva needs to have a certain gonzo quality about it. People need to turn into jellyfish. They need to pull other screaming characters into their squishy embrace and dissolve them. They need to whip folks with fingers that turned into tentacles with stingers on the end of them. A flamethrower should probably appear. If a shark can somehow be involved, all the better. For example:
“Hey, we caught a shark! Egad, why does it look like it was whipped by Django?”
Instead, we got a bunch of mopey characters lamenting the fact they got something in their eye that someone else might spot with a flashlight.
This isn’t a Sea Fever. It is more like a Sea Sniffle.
The post Review: SEA FEVER (2019) appeared first on Last Movie Outpost.
