director
John Stockwell
screenwriters
Lizzy Weiss
John Stockwell
story by
Lizzy Weiss
based on
the magazine article
"Surf Girls of Maui" by
Susan Orlean
producers
Brian Grazer
Karen Kehela
cinematographer
David Hennings
music
Paul Haslinger
editor
Emma E. Hickox
cast
Kate Bosworth (Anne Marie)
Michelle Rodriguez (Eden)
Matthew Davis (Matt)
Sanoe Lake (Lena)
Mika Boorem (Penny)
Kala Alexander (Kala)
mpaa rating: PG-13
running
time: 104m
u.s.
release: 8/16/02
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
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I can recommend Blue Crush
pretty much without irony for one thing: the surfing sequences.
Mixing dizzying speed and the terrifying force of the waves,
the footage -- particularly during the climax, when surfers compete
in the punishing Pipeline event -- is about as electrifying as
action scenes are going to get this summer. Director John Stockwell
and his cinematographer David Hennings put the camera in the
water, on top of the water, on the surfboard and inside the surfer's
viewpoint, and the camera feasts just as much on the radiant
female surfers showing their stuff as it does on the seething
white waves. Leni Riefenstahl might have made a movie like this
(and, in her prime, starred in it too).
If you go to Blue Crush
with no expectations other than kick-ass surfing and one hour
and forty-four minutes of air conditioning, it'll do the trick.
But when the movie attempts to tell a story on land, you might
want to bring along a flashlight and a magazine -- perhaps the
back issue of Outside in which Susan Orlean's article
"Surf Girls of Maui," the loose basis for this film,
was published. (Orlean has the surreal distinction this year
of providing material for a surf-babe flick and a Spike Jonze movie in which Meryl Streep
plays her.) Stockwell co-wrote the script with Lizzy Weiss, who
came up with the time-honored plot following a Determined Yet
Vulnerable Girl Who Must Overcome Fear to Realize Her Potential.
Anne Marie (Kate Bosworth)
lives in Oahu with her rebellious kid sister Penny (Mika Boorem)
and best friends Eden (Michelle Rodriguez) and Lena (Sanoe Lake).
To make ends meet, the girls work as housekeepers at the local
swanky hotel, until Anne Marie gets fired for objecting to a
used condom left on the hotel-room floor by a visiting football
player. She finds less to object to when she meets one of the
other football players, Matt (Matthew Davis), who flashes
$1,000 at her for surfing lessons; she promptly hops into bed
with him, but as written (and played by the fresh-faced Bosworth),
Anne Marie is clearly not meant to be taken as a whore, even
if the more cynical members of the audience fail to see a difference.
Poor Anne Marie. Her mom up
and left for Vegas with some no-account bum, her sister gives
her grief, and Eden is always in her face to keep her mind on
the upcoming Pipeline. Michelle Rodriguez is in the movie to
be the tough-love voice of reason -- the surfer who never had
as much natural talent as our heroine and wants to see Anne Marie
succeed where she herself failed. As the movie goes on, you begin
to notice things like the way the blonde, pink Anne Marie is
front and center, her dilemmas given the weight of Greek tragedy,
while her non-white friends (including Lena, an amiable non-entity
played by surfer and acting newcomer Sanoe Lake with more charisma,
despite almost no material to work with, than her first-billed
co-star ever shows) stay in the background for support. There
are also two comic-relief African-American fatties who horse
around and display their bellies every time the movie needs a
laugh. Jar Jar Binks, move over. Leni Riefenstahl could've made
this part of the film, too.
Those interested in the real
world of female surfers might want to take a look at the 50-minute
video also titled Blue Crush, released a couple of years
ago; it featured a few of the real-life surf legends relegated
to cameos here, like Keala Kennelly and Layne Beachley (who turns
up as Anne Marie's main competitor -- she's so laid-back and
so supportive of her sisters of the surf that she actually helps
Anne Marie catch a big wave). These women have the faces and
bodies of real athletes, and you want to see more of them and
less scenes like the one in which Matt takes Anne Marie to a
posh dinner party and she overhears some snooty women ridiculing
her dress. Blue Crush is about an hour of junk surrounded
by dynamic surf action. But if that's what you're going to it
to see, by all means go. Just don't forget the magazine.
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