Following punchy German crime features Gravity and Stereo, director Maximilian Erlenwein’s first English-language film is a terse, minimal two-hander that should do at least as much to keep swimmers out of the ocean this summer as The Meg 2, albeit for completely different reasons.
Drew (Sophie Lowe) and May (Louisa Krause) are sisters driving to a quiet, unnamed coast for their annual scuba dive. May left her family years earlier for reasons that are never fully explained, but there is the suggestion of parental mistreatment – it appears a previous trip to the sea involved her father pushing her underwater.
Of more interest are the mechanics of the dive itself, as May ends up caught under a heavy rock 100 feet underwater. Erlenwein excels in setting up a gripping race against time: under May’s calm instruction, panicking Drew has 25 minutes to get to the surface, nab spare oxygen tanks, call for help, grab a car jack and return to May before she runs out of air.
Lowe’s terrified, anxious trip to the surface and agonised attempts to alert others are followed with precision, clarity and pace by cinematographer Frank Griebe’s roving camerawork. Erlenwein – with an assist from co-writer Joachim Heden – keeps things controlled and believable. The section where a frantic Lowe tries desperately to open their rented motor's uncooperative boot is perhaps the film’s most exciting moment.
Despite the drastically different setting, the film that The Dive most readily recalls is Fall, Scott Mann and Jonathan Frank’s gripping 2022 survival thriller in which two women get stranded atop a TV mast in the desert. In this case, the movie runs out of steam toward its conclusion: a return to an air pocket the siblings stopped at on their way down to the depths seems contrived, and those hoping for a big finish may be disappointed. Quibbles aside, though, Erlenwein has made a fine, fast and claustrophobic piece that doesn’t overstay its welcome.
In UK cinemas Aug 25.