Rarely, but sometimes, a movie can have an actual physical effect on you. It gets under your defenses and sidesteps the "it's only a movie" reflex and creates a visceral feeling that might as well be real.Open Water had that effect on me. After the movie was over, I felt the need to walk in the sunshine and try to cheer myself up.

That's not to say Open Water is a thriller that churned my emotions.  It's a quiet film in which less and less happens as a large, implacable reality begins to form. The ending is so low-key we almost miss it. It tells the story of a couple who go scuba diving and surface to discover that the boat has left without them. The horizon is empty in all directions. They feel very alone.

When night follows day, when thirst becomes unbearable, when jellyfish sting, when sharks make themselves known, when the boat STILL does not come back for them, their situation becomes a vast, dark, cosmic joke. It is one thing to be in danger of losing your life. It is another thing to have hours and hours to think about it and to discuss how casually the Caribbean vacation was settled on, instead of a ski holiday. The angriest line in the whole movie may be: "We paid to do this." They went to a good deal of trouble and expense in order to be abandoned at sea.