Blue Crush: Movie Review, DVD Review (2002)

9/21/2007 Posted by Admin

Chambermaids--hanging 10

(Originally published 2002)

Directed by John Stockwell, written by Stockwell and Lizzy Weiss, 104 minutes, PG-13.

John Stockwell's new surfing drama, "Blue Crush," follows a trio of young Hawaiian chambermaids tackling all sorts of waves, from the sudden rush of their own hormones, which are flowing as if it were high tide, to the towering 30-foot variety, on which you’d ride a surfboard and hope for the best.

The film, from a script by Stockwell and Lizzy Weiss, features enough skin to start a tannery, but still, it’s not as trashy as you might think.

Yes, it has its share of booty calls and string bikinis. Yes, there are fist fights, one-night-stands, unfit mothers skipping off to Vegas and enough six-packs to fill up a convenience store cooler.

But in the interest of telling a good story and telling it well, the movie strikes a balance with David Henning’s superb water photography, which is terrific, a hip look that reinvigorates the surfer movies of the 1960s, a quick pace, and characters you come to care about.

Who knew?

Based loosely on Susan Orlean’s magazine article, "The Surf Girls of Maui," "Blue Crush" sets its action on the island of Oahu, where a talented yet frustrated surfer girl named Anne Marie Chadwick (Kate Bosworth) is trying to get her surfing career off the ground.

It isn’t easy. Forced to juggle her chambermaid work with the raising of her kid sister, Penny (Mika Boorem), Anne Marie’s spare time is spent training for the upcoming Pipe Masters competition, a major surfing event that could net her millions in sponsorship fees should she trump the competition--but which could also cost her her life should she lose her footing and get sucked out to sea.

Cheering her on are her roommates, Eden (Michelle Rodriguez) and Lena (Sanoe Lake), but even they might not be enough to convince Anne Marie to actually compete. Not only is she still emotionally scarred from a childhood surfing accident, in which she struck her head against a coral reef, but she's just met Matt (Matthew Davis), a sensitive, super-rich pro quarterback whose fat bank account could offer Anne Marie a life beyond this sand, these waves--and the dirge of cleaning toilets.

As sudsy as all this sounds, "Blue Crush" keeps a lid on what could have become high camp. It plays the material straight and by doing so, it respects its characters, which gets to the real reason the movie works: It doesn’t condescend. Toss into this mix the film’s liveliest character--the ocean--and “Blue Crush” stands as one of the best teen-oriented films to hit in theaters this summer.

Grade: B+

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