A young and happy family is moving into a suburban house in a good neighborhood, which has an inviting pool. What can go wrong?
Review
Instead, Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell), Eve Waller (Kerry Condon), Izzy Waller (Amélie Hoeferle) and Elliot Waller (Gavin Warren) have decided to hunt for a different place to live. Even though he used to be an excellent baseball player, Ray’s been compelled to retire because of some illness; nevertheless, presently it requires him walking stick. He sees a house with a pool in the backyard that is on sale going for almost nothing and they decide that they will buy it. He starts his water therapy and things seem okay with him at this point of the story. However, after they find themselves inside the pool together as four individuals rather than as one family.
‘Night Swim’ tries bringing out themes of sacrifice, grief and what lies underneath in everyday life using the backdrop of illness and the supernatural as experienced by families. This however does not happen due to Bryce McGuire’s poor screenplay writing skills coupled with execution failure. The narrative begins from a promising prologue but quickly loses steam when it jumps into modern day events. Wyatt Russell as Ray Waller provides some depth along with Kerr Condon who plays his wife eve but both are let down by a script so lacking in finesse especially where drama is concerned thus killing any emotional build up about the family.
One major problem with this film is its pacing as there is no consistent progression of suspense or fear throughout it all. The cinematography is not always consistent with the tone of the movie. In many cases, these underwater scenes intendedly meant to feel claustrophobic and panic inducing turn out more disorienting than frightful ones. Such visual inconsistency further diminishes its impact even more greatly than before if you ask me! The culmination comes off rushed and falls short of being both emotionally moving and horrifying as it rather feels like a way to finish the story instead of giving it any meaning. Despite all the attempts by cast members of ‘Night Swim’ to salvage it, the film ends up failing to be either interesting or scary as it should have been if only its script was better and the pacing evened out.
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