Update on surfer movies is best for its water-level view of the most dangerous type of surfing
[Some details in this may reflect that I really don’t know much about surfing (much less big-wave surfing) or Hawaii, but I made a college try to provide a journalistically fair enough rendering. Slight edit done 8/22/12.]
There were quite a few movies I saw from about 9/11 until maybe later 2003, a period when, diverging from the highly tooled professionalism of movies in the late 1990s, it seemed a lot of interesting story ideas and new talent were emerging in a sort of last ferment of “indie”-type movies that weren’t “made on the defensive,” unlike in recent years. In very recent years, before a lot of CGI commotion fests and Spandex-o-rama superhero films became the apparent norm, it seems the only way an adult story, without wild action, gets made that features actors noted for their rich acting is via the production companies that seem to cater to such efforts—Focus Features, Participant, numerous others.
It seems, in a general way, that films—after about 2003 or 2004—got more on the defensive: if a big-studio film dealt with a serious subject, it was in catering to some aggrieved sense pursuant to 9/11, the Iraq war, the 2008-09 financial crisis, etc. Otherwise, these studios’ fare was primarily empty entertainment, and the serious subjects got relegated to the “indie” ghetto. This characterization is all very broad, I know.
But it’s to provide some background for noting that a lot of unusual-topic, serious-topic, or other non–kid-audience things bubbled up in the immediate wake of the turn of the millennium, made by big studios, as if the studio system was engaging in a last big fit of optimism, youthful recklessness, whatever. Matchstick Men (2003; see my July 31 and August 3 reviews) , even if it was by fantasy-oriented Ridley Scott, seemed of this ilk. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) was like this. You could look at a list of releases from 2001-03 and name a whole slew.
It was within this loosely inclusive category that Blue Crush was released in August 2002, amazingly a whole decade ago now. It was produced by Universal, in association with Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment (I should know more about Grazer), so it was a big-studio release but, even from a cursory look at the title, seems like purely youth-market fare. I remember seeing it in the theater in 2002, and though August is generally a “dump the also-rans” period for movie releases, and though the fact that this movie was in that bin suggested we should keep out expectations relatively low, this movie made money, and wasn’t too bad, I thought at the time. It was also, as it happened, the big-release debut of actress Kate Bosworth. To the extent it was a part of the new-release “cutting edge” of the time, it seemed more than a glass half-full.
Today, with a decade’s changes in U.S. history and mood, and movie marketing entailing so much more of catering to the young who want to see action heroes and fantasy, and old grumps like me getting choosier about what youthful-fun movies we will accord respect, this is arguably the most disappointing movie from that 2001-03 time, at least so far, for me to review today. So why include it in this blog?
Well, the scenes of surfers dealing with monster waves are still exciting and evocative. And I also want to comment on specific actresses in the film with an eye to remarking more generally on the occasional weird fates the young-actress career can be subject to.
First, an unblinking look at this beach-glare movie (sunglasses optional)
This film is like the braiding together of two things: a rather trite direct-to-DVD–type story of a young woman and her youthful-aspirations life, and exciting, music-video type footage showing what it’s like to be out in “pipe”-type waves and other turbulent waters when surfers in engaging in a sport both invigorating and highly dangerous.
Here’s the story, and with all else, I’ll comment (indirectly) on the preposterous aspects of it, without trying to imply the movie is a waste of time for all this.
Three friends—Anne Marie Chadwick (played by Kate Bosworth, ~19 at the time, and looking like someone’s dream image of an attractive, slightly athletic blonde), Eden (Michelle Rodriguez, ~23 at the time), and Lena (Sanoe Lake, ~22 at the time, of mixed ethnicity and the only real surfer among the actresses)—are living in a grungy shore house in Hawaii, with Chadwick’s younger sister Penny (Mika Boorem, with her lack of tan showing she’s not such a beach bum). Anne Marie’s mother has fled the family (Mother, we find from another conversational detail, is in Las Vegas, I believe with some guy). So Anne Marie is tasked with raising her younger sister, while also making common cause (aspiration-wise) with the other two women; these three older women are all surfers, Chadwick the ambitious one, and all always having to scrounge for money.
In fact, they all work as maids in a local resort hotel, but mints and pocket lint turned out along with change when paying for a pathetic array of groceries only go so far. They drive a beater of an early-’60s Chevy, and evoke all the carefree catch-as-catch-can living of young people in that U.S. middle-class phase of life between school and adult responsibilities: the house is a pigsty, the food is unhealthy, yet they blithely get away with it, and have life-dreams and pastimes to nourish them.
But there is an eye toward hitting the big time in some fashion. Anne Marie is hoping to win in the upcoming Pipe Masters (or Pipeline Masters; sources seem to vary) contest, where contenders are paired off with each other (Anne Marie will actually be paired with one of the real female professional surfers featured in the film—altogether comprising Rochelle Ballard, Kate Skarratt [from Australia, sounds like], and Keala Kennelly). See, Anne Marie is—very, very generally like Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now—going all the way: she doesn’t just want to win the contest, and all the goodies that append to that (commercial endorsements, etc.)—money in the bank to help pay for food. She also wants to win as a woman in a sport that does not embrace a lot of women. Cool enough (and it is also a thematic desideratum of the director).
And, of course, though Anne Marie seems like a dropout of sorts with her no longer pursuing school (as a Hawaiian-shirted school principal notes to her at one point), she does want her sister Penny to go to college (as she avers in a pre-climactic coming-to-terms scene when she embraces her goals to Matt—on whom more anon), and she wants Penny to stop “smoking” (this smoking, we find, entails use of a homemade pipe made out of an orange and tinfoil—so expensive tobacco cigarettes are not part of this equation). So Anne Marie, we find, is a surfer gal with a heart of gold, who wants not only to be a competitor but to give her younger sister the start in life she herself couldn’t have because Mother fell down on her duties and fled the family nest.
Partway through the film, Anne Marie, in trying to extricate her corn-row–haired Penny from the clutch of surfer-partiers, is berated by plucky Penny: “You’re the one who made Mom leave, you were screwing up all the time!” Penny charges, whether fairly or not.
The sisters’ interrelationship-trials manifest otherwise: seeing Penny hang out with local burnouts, Anne Marie pronounces with stoic love, “She’s got a bad attitude. It’s not who she is.” (Adapting the teachings or Erik Erikson? If so, also cool.)
Interestingly, Anne Marie’s firm allies in this family-related situation include Eden , played by a tough-mannered but loyal Rodriguez (how is it that such a Jersey City-type Hispanic girl, complete with American-flag-designed beach wear, is domiciled in Hawaii Eden
Then there is Lena, played by Sanoe Lake, who in real life is the only real surfer among the three actresses, and she looks like she comes from the area. Yet she is not the vocal surfing exponent that either Anne Marie or Eden are in their respective ways; she is like the cheerful loyal friend who nevertheless can do and criticize surfing (Lake’s and Bosworth’s having bonded on this film, noted in the DVD making-of doc, show in their fun rapport in this film).
The plot line of Anne Marie getting distracted when a football team comes as VIP hotel guests can be regarded as pure corn—the quarterback (seemingly the only appealing Anglo) is the only clear date prospect for her, among others including two hefty Black men (the main one played by comedian Faizon Love) who provide fun comic moments in the film. (Though the two big Black guys are supposed to be linebackers or the like, they seem pretty beer-bellied for that; they seem meant to invoke William “Refrigerator” Perry but seem more like they make a few too many raids on their own refrigerators.) Anne Marie’s taking up with Matt in different get-togethers, while Pipe Masters is just days away, leads to solemn expressions of regret from Eden like “She’s messin’ up, man.”
Another plot thread has Anne Marie with Matt at a nighttime dinner, during which she takes a WC break and overhears catty females among the football group’s retinue remarking as if Anne Marie was yet another unwitting partner in Matt’s being one who “loves to slum.” See the movie for further elucidation of this situation.
You can probably tell from what I’ve said so far that the story is fairly trite, but it’s also accessible. Though the acting can be casual and the speaking occasionally a bit muffled—the cinema verité style sometimes seems just lazily done—you can pick up what’s going on about 90 percent of the time on first viewing.
The real-life surfing background
The story is based, according to the movie DVD, on a magazine article, “Surf Girls of Maui” [by whom?] (the Wikipedia article on the film cites a different story). The movie’s credits mention a story by Lizzy Weiss and screenplay by Weiss and John Stockwell, the film’s director who, through his career, has been an actor, director, producer, and model, and also has surfed. Producer Grazer (who says he’s a surfer too) shows in the making-of doc that he wanted to make a surfing film that leads actual surfers to say, “This rocks!” The location is, as Stockwell says, the “Mecca of surfing,” the North Shore of O’ahu. And indeed, as I’ve said, the surfing scenes are the most exciting things in the film, the one thing that truly recommends it to the widest audience. The water action—sometimes with interest-churning changes in film speed—is typically scored to hip hop and other energizing pop of ~2002, which make the scenes music-video-ish.
Also, if some principals in the making-of doc say the film may invite some viewers to learn to surf, the type of surfing here is formidable, and for many it may be better to watch in awe than to try, due to its dangerousness: “pipe,” involving the type of big, curling-over wave that forms a “pipe” to try to surf within, “is the deadliest wave in the world,” says one commenter. Hardly any women do it, it’s noted.
By the way, I don’t know much of anything about surfing or Hawaii, but one virtue of this film and its DVD extras is that it tells you about enough to be able to appreciate what’s going on. And if you aren’t excited by watching surfing on dangerous water, maybe you’d be afraid to watch if ever you’ve been traumatizingly pummeled by rough surf at the shore. A relevant Wikipedia article shows information almost exclusively on male surfers (there are only a very females listed); and among relevant movies, Blue Crush isn’t mentioned.
In fact, as the film makes accessibly enough clear, on the North Shore location where the choice “pipe” is, the water between the largest waves and the shoreline is fairly shallow, and the underwater floor is lined with rocks with sharp edges and “underwater caves,” as an announcer at a show says. So a lot of the challenge isn’t riding the curling wave on your surfboard; it’s surviving if you’re plunged underwater by the enormous force of these waves, which this film gives plenty of lucid shots illustrating. (The making-of material on the DVD gives interesting views on the type of equipment and the cameramen floating in the water to get a lot of these shots—and of course, when waves sometimes took the surfers underwater, the waterproofed camera went with them, still filming, showing the weird spinning of water underneath the surface. The film was also digitally enhanced, so that the whole experience is bright, evenly colorful, and sharp. The “blue” is kept with the “crush.”)
The local surfer subculture—among ethnic Hawaiians, it seems—is warmly embraced, with some of its members participating in the film. There is a scene in which the characteristic territoriality of the locals is illustrated by a group of them intimidating Anne Marie and particularly her new beau Matt (orienting advisories by the semi-bullies include “This is a local spot”; and “We grew here, you flew here,” one instructs the q-back). Yet their generally good nature is affirmed by the film when the same fellows are friendly again at the big contest late in the film.
Story kickers and marketing cosmetics
Added to all the melodrama surrounding Anne Marie’s life is the fact that, three years before, in a contest she experienced a “near-drowning incident,” as an Internet report she hears routinely recounts it. So she does have her posttraumatic issues: she is leery enough of getting on big waves that early and late in the film, she is gun-shy about getting on the monster pipe-waves again. Also, as a very early establishing scene (reflecting a bedtime dream) shows, she had hit her head on a rock in the three-year-old incident; this image is replayed a couple times in the film as a sort of memory/fear, though viewers might mistake it for something that is happening then. So you get your suspense “vitamin” in this bowl of cornflakes.
Want more emotional richness? When Anne Marie seems on the brink of dropping out of the competition and Eden, after having helped her train on a jet-ski, taunts her caringly about the pattern she might be exhibiting, she remarks that Anne Marie’s suddenly deciding to quit “sounds so familiar…like mother, like daughter”—the idea that Anne Marie is running away, and that into the arms of a random male, as Anne Marie’s mother appears to have done. But we can assume Anne Marie is made of more exemplary stuff.
A final note could be made on the issue of marketing boneheadedness, before I turn to the specific actresses: For such a sports movie—I’m not a big fan of the genre, though I really would like to review Bend It Like Beckham (2002), a British film I like a lot—it becomes obvious that certain marketing “rules of character identifiability” have to be met. First, the heroine’s being an Anglo (while her two cohorts are Hispanic and mixed-ethnic-including-Hawaiian) and highly attractive is important. Bosworth shows she’s worked out for the role, with big shoulders, sun-bleached hair, and a generally hale air.
Meanwhile, as John Stockwell says, there was a challenge in having a non-surfer in the lead surfing role, with Kate Bosworth needing training and to maintain unaccustomed fortitude in the rough surf, with all else. So (as it turns out for the viewer) part of the interest in the movie isn’t simply in seeing Bosworth as a physically attractive female but in seeing her keep determination and deal with her stress amid the big waves (this is rather like putting a highly feminine type in crushing horror-movie circumstances, like Shelley Duvall in The Shining or Alison Lohman in Drag Me to Hell). So you don’t just get a female ripe for the “agog ogler” sensibility; and to me, frankly, the movie gets embarrassingly Baywatch-y when shots of Bosworth seem mainly there to show her beauty, either swimming or in a shower, or walking around in undies (there’s a slight soft-core porn aspect to this—and Stockwell says some stuff was cut that hewed even more to this Baywatch-y standard).
Amid all this, what is amusing is that, when Bosworth is in a black dress with deep neckline, to go on a big date with Matt, and it exposes her chest enough for a PG-13 rating, her chest looks odd because she seems muscular and taut, as if she’s been working out and swimming a lot, not as if she’s nubile-breasted and ready for a steamy scene scored with Peggy Lee’s “Fever” or “Big Spender.”
A slightly rueful look at the actresses
Bosworth
In Blue Crush, Bosworth comes off as pretty much what she is: a beautiful, prom-ready sort with thin acting ability—yes, able to articulate the school-project-like script lines, but suggesting she’s about as wise about life as any privileged homecoming-queen type who maybe has “peaked in high school” and now is genuinely trying to figure out what she wants. (I mean the “type” suggested, not necessarily Bosworth as she heartily is.) She seems—to look at her and consider her acting—as if (not that this would come out much, given fair circumstances) she’s lacking a certain important sense of humor about herself: she may be sensitive to being tallied up just on the basis of her beauty, but leaves you asking whether she really can amount to a mature actress whose depth of emotion and sense of the shape of longer-term life lead you to respect her for her talent and vision.
This, I should note, is the impression I get just from this movie, and I don’t necessarily mean it as a negative; the delicately enunciating, well-nourished ingénue may be exactly what is needed in her role in Blue Crush, though it’s amusing to consider that the real female surfer-stars glimpsed in this movie (Ballard, Skarratt, and Kennelly) seem more like sturdy horses, about as tough as, and approaching the color of, beef jerky.
Rodriguez
In a way, of the three surfer friends, the one who seems in this film the strongest actress, in her earthy way, is Michelle Rodriguez. And Rodriguez could be argued to have had the stronger career. Let’s be clear: Bosworth may have been in higher-profile films, but they are the sort an Anglo actress would be featured in. Two I saw were Win a Date with Tad Hamilton
Rodriguez’s Wikipedia bio suggests she is chosen typically to play “tough girl” roles. In Blue Crush, with her somewhat coarse way of handling language (and occasional husky voice), her occasional slanted smile, and frank, not-meant-to-be-cute looks, she brings a stark “realness” to the set of females. Today, we might say she brings to the proceedings a hint of New Jersey in the same way that Governor Chris Christie (ambiguously for many) does: a sort of bullshit-banishing, direct, unvarnished style that has all the reverberant grace of a massive fart in a bathtub. (All right, Rodriguez isn’t that bad.) This style, in Blue Crush, does two things with Rodriguez: (1) make you wonder why this Jersey type is gallivanting around in Hawaii, and makes it amusing that delicate Anne Marie has Eden as her strongest supporter; and (2) provide some balance that allows the respective charms of the differently flavored women to come out more.
A broader question might be, What types of up-and-coming actresses are circulating to serve the Hispanic population in the U.S., which now is a bigger minority group than Blacks? Of course, we know about Jennifer Lopez, and inoffensive young-audience types out of the Disney machine such as Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato (the latter not fully Hispanic, but a mix including Irish). A lot of fan-magazine-cover–gracing Hispanic actresses are the type to appeal across ethnic lines—seeming rather white, or at least cute-as-a-button. Rodriguez never seemed that way. Having lived in Jersey City, she seems, even in Blue Crush, like an urban New Jersey street tough come to dinner. Part of my point is, this is all cool; but is it the best that can be done to incorporate Hispanic style into the broader U.S. popular culture, to the extent it reflects a sort of shared cultural self-regard? Of course, the culture has, and will have, a way to go in this regard. Meanwhile, such an actress as Rodriguez may be there, per her intention, to show her particular smarts and maybe poke fun at the idea of the “Hispanic tough” as much as anything else.
For another measure, simply compare Rodriguez on screen to Jessica Alba in Machete. They even appear in the same scene once or twice, if I recall. Rodriguez, not a pretty pinup type, is the real actress, hands down.
So maybe Rodriguez has turned out some grittier performances in total than Bosworth over the past decade, but you have to look in a semi-ghetto of not-mainstream-taste films to find her. To adapt an old Sheila E. lyric (which I think was written by Prince), “That’s what we are, we all want the not-so-inclusive love bizarre.”
Lake
Lastly, there is Sanoe Lake. She has appeared in Blue Crush, and…very little else, to judge from her Wiki bio. What’s up? She is unusual-looking, combining Hawaiian, Japanese, and English stock, per the bio. (You know you’re dealing with an unusual mix when she seems at first look as definitely from the Pacific—but then you see she has blue or green eyes!) Maybe she doesn’t want a film career. Maybe she can’t get a good agent. In any event, she provides some of the solid fun of Blue Crush, with a cheer and enthusiasm—and not vapidity—that (in its less self-serious manner) look more appealing than Bosworth’s. And she’s an actual surfer. So how did she end up as the all-but-forgotten Zeppo Marx of these three girls? Maybe that’s Hollywood
