Sea Fever (2019) Review
Sea Fever (2019) Review
Siobhán’s a marine biology student (Hermione Corfield) who prefers spending her days alone in a lab. She has to endure a week on a ragged fishing trawler, where she’s miserably at odds with the close-knit crew. But out in the deep Atlantic, an unfathomable life form ensnares the boat. When members of the crew succumb to a strange infection, Siobhán must overcome her alienation and anxiety to win the crew’s trust, before everyone is lost.
Writer and director Neasa Hardiman’s SEA FEVER couldn’t have timed its release date any better. With the world’s population currently in the midst of a pandemic this sci-fi thriller has uncanny parallels as a small boat crew bicker about whether they should stay away from shore lest the virus they have onboard contaminate the rest of the world. Oddly the parallel feels somewhat muted when audiences have a very real situation of their own to contend with which consequently robs the film of some of the power it could have had.
The film draws comparisons to director John Carpenter’s seminal monster movie THE THING (1982) with a small band of people faced with insurmountable odds as something unknown causes problems for them within a claustrophobic setting away from the world at large. Hardiman is evidently aware of the similarities and nods towards the classic movie’s blood-testing scene by having the crew undergo a similar kind of test to see if they have become infected by shining a torch into each other’s eyes. However unlike Carpenter’s movie, SEA FEVER lacks oomph, pandering to cliché and failing to go deeper with any characterisation.
What we are left with is a lukewarm thriller that has moments that dazzle but overall doesn’t quite have the kick that it should do. Whilst it doesn’t quite live up to the potential of its premise it does manage to evoke though is sympathy for lead character Siobhán as she struggles to fit in with the crew. That she only went on this trip in an effort to open herself up a bit and develop some people skills gives the film’s final scenes that extra emotional wallop concluding on a rather sombre and poignant note.
