The Green Sea (2021) – Film Review
Director: Randal Plunkett
Cast: Katharine Isabelle, Hazel Doupe, Jenny Dixon
Certificate: 15
By @Roger Crow
Don’t you just love self destructive, chain-smoking alcoholic writers who live in a cluttered mess? Oh, you don’t. Well, the bad news is you’ll have to put up with one of the most obnoxious characters to grace a movie in many a moon.
Katharine Isabelle, who rose to fame in cult Canadian werewolf horror Ginger Snaps 21 years ago, plays Simone, the loner writer who is horrible to everyone and thinks drinking and driving is fine.
“Uneasy bond”
When she knocks a girl down, it looks like being another hit-and-run thriller, but it seems there’s more to this girl than meets the eye. She’s slightly ethereal and puts up with the obnoxious, foul-mouthed woman who knocked her down and then takes her in.
The strange young girl proceeds to clean the writer’s home, and Simone responds like she’s been struck with a cattle prod. But eventually the anti-heroine warms to the stranger and an uneasy bond is formed.
Who is this girl, where did she come from, and did we really need those title cards? The latter is a personal bugbear as nearly every other new indie film seems to use them like they’re going out of fashion. Quentin Tarantino can use them because love him or loathe him, the man is a genius, but everyone else? Leave them well alone. Please. I’m begging you. They don’t make your film better. They just make it more episodic and annoying.
“Potty mouthed”
Despite its horrendous lead character, The Green Sea is watchable enough. The cast do a fine job with the material, but the script needed more polish and the pace needed to be more snappy. I was pretty bored early on and watched some scenes at twice the speed. It still dragged.
If you like cool indie films with strange goings on then this may appeal, but SO MUCH TIME was spent getting to the point, and potty mouthed anti-heroines really wind me up, so I was hoping something bad would happen to her as soon as possible.
With some judicious pruning, this could have been a much better film, but sadly The Green Sea failed to float my boat.
