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Dead Calm (film)
Encyclopedia
Dead Calm is a 1989 thriller film starring Sam Neill
, Nicole Kidman
and Billy Zane
. It was based on the 1963 novel of the same name
by Charles Williams
. The film was directed by Australian filmmaker Phillip Noyce
and filmed in the Great Barrier Reef
.
) and his wife Rae (Kidman
), lose their son in a car crash. John hopes that some time alone will help Rae, who was driving the car, cope, and the couple head out for a vacation alone on their yacht. In the middle of the Pacific they encounter a drifting boat that seems to be taking on water. A man, Hughie Warriner (Zane
), rows over to the Ingram's boat for help. He claims that the boat is sinking and that his companions have all died of food poisoning.
Suspicious of Hughie's story, John rows over to the other ship, leaving Rae alone with Hughie. Inside, John discovers the mangled corpses of the other passengers and video footage indicating that Hughie may have murdered them in a fit of insanity. John rushes back to his own boat but is too late as Hughie awakes, knocks out Rae and sails their yacht away, leaving John behind.
As John attempts to repair Hughie's ship from sinking and catch up to them, Rae awakens and tries to convince Hughie to go back for her husband. Hughie denies her request and keeps on sailing, alternating between kindness and bouts of rage as he attempts to charm Rae. John manages to get through to his wife on the radio, but the water damage makes him unable to reply with the exception of the clicks on his receiver. He can only respond to her suggestions. Rae soon learns that the damage to Hughie's boat will cause it to sink in the next several hours and realizes she must act.
Desperate to gain control of the boat, Rae gives in to Hughie's advances and the two have sex. Afterwards, she fixes them some lemonade, putting a heavy dose of her prescription sedatives into his drink. As a fierce storm comes on, Rae and Hughie come to blows, with Rae eventually shooting Hughie with a harpoon gun and knocking him unconscious. She then sets Hughie adrift in the boat's life raft and sails back to rescue John. Meanwhile, the damage and the storm have caused the other boat to sink almost completely. John swims out of the boat and sets the debris on fire, attracting the attention of Rae, who rescues him from a piece of floating debris.
After John's rescue the couple find the life raft and Rae shoots it with a flare, setting it on fire. The next day they are relaxing on deck when John takes a break from washing Rae's hair to prepare breakfast for his wife. Her eyes closed, Rae feels a pair of hands begin massaging her scalp and assumes it is John, but when the hands turn aggressive she opens her eyes and sees a bloody Hughie Warriner, who tries to strangle her. While Rae struggles, John arrives from below deck. Seeing his wife being attacked, he shoots Hughie in the mouth with their flare gun, killing him.
by Charles Williams
. Other than character names and the scenario of a woman trapped on a boat with a psychopath, the film bears little resemblance to the book, which had several other main characters (including Hughie's wife and another couple), and presented Hughie as a nominally asexual manchild. The movie was filmed over a 14-week span in the Whitsunday Islands
.
and a critical rating of 95%. According to Variety
, Kidman is "excellent throughout, ... [giving] the character of Rae real tenacity and energy;" and the picture is "handsomely produced and inventively directed." Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
wrote that the film "generates genuine tension." Desson Howe of the Washington Post praised the film's creators: "Noyce's direction moves impressively from sensual tenderness (between husband and wife) to edge-of-the-seat horror. With the accomplished editing by Richard Francis-Bruce
and scoring by Graeme Revell
, he finds lurking dangers in quiet, peaceful waters."
On the other hand, Caryn James of the New York Times felt that the film was "an unsettling hybrid of escapist suspense and the kind of pure trash that depends on dead babies and murdered dogs for effect," and that Dead Calm "becomes disturbing for all the wrong reasons." A number of critics faulted the film's ending as being over-the-top, with the Posts Howe writing, "... while it's afloat, 'Dead Calm' is a majestic horror cruise. ... For much of the movie, you're enthralled. By the end, you're laughing."
The acting was generally considered excellent, with Zane being cited for injecting "unforgettable humanity and evil puckishness into his role" and being "suitably manic and evil." And while Rita Kempley of the Washington Post wrote "what's most fascinating about it is Rae's place in the pantheon of heroines, an Amazon
for the '90s," the Times James called Kidman's character "tough but stupid."
The film is listed on the New York Times Top 1000 Movies list, derived from editor Peter M. Nichols' The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made (St. Martin's Griffin, 2004).
Sam Neill
Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III....
, Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
and Billy Zane
Billy Zane
William George "Billy" Zane, Jr. is an American actor, producer and director. He is probably best known for his roles as Caledon Hockley in Titanic, The Phantom from The Phantom, John Wheeler in Twin Peaks and Mr...
. It was based on the 1963 novel of the same name
Dead Calm
Dead Calm is a 1963 novel by Charles F. Williams, which was the basis for the unreleased film The Deep and the later film Dead Calm .- Plot :...
by Charles Williams
Charles Williams (U.S. author)
Charles Williams was an American writer of hardboiled crime fiction. He is regarded by critics as one of the finest suspense novelists of the 1950s and 1960s. His 1951 debut, the pulp paperback novel Hill Girl, sold over a million copies...
. The film was directed by Australian filmmaker Phillip Noyce
Phillip Noyce
Phillip Noyce is an Australian film director.-Life and career:Noyce was born in Griffith, New South Wales, attended Barker College, Sydney, and began making short films at the age of 18, starting with Better to Reign in Hell, using his friends as the cast...
and filmed in the Great Barrier Reef
Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef is the world'slargest reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,600 kilometres over an area of approximately...
.
Plot summary
A troubled couple, Australian naval officer John Ingram (NeillSam Neill
Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III....
) and his wife Rae (Kidman
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
), lose their son in a car crash. John hopes that some time alone will help Rae, who was driving the car, cope, and the couple head out for a vacation alone on their yacht. In the middle of the Pacific they encounter a drifting boat that seems to be taking on water. A man, Hughie Warriner (Zane
Billy Zane
William George "Billy" Zane, Jr. is an American actor, producer and director. He is probably best known for his roles as Caledon Hockley in Titanic, The Phantom from The Phantom, John Wheeler in Twin Peaks and Mr...
), rows over to the Ingram's boat for help. He claims that the boat is sinking and that his companions have all died of food poisoning.
Suspicious of Hughie's story, John rows over to the other ship, leaving Rae alone with Hughie. Inside, John discovers the mangled corpses of the other passengers and video footage indicating that Hughie may have murdered them in a fit of insanity. John rushes back to his own boat but is too late as Hughie awakes, knocks out Rae and sails their yacht away, leaving John behind.
As John attempts to repair Hughie's ship from sinking and catch up to them, Rae awakens and tries to convince Hughie to go back for her husband. Hughie denies her request and keeps on sailing, alternating between kindness and bouts of rage as he attempts to charm Rae. John manages to get through to his wife on the radio, but the water damage makes him unable to reply with the exception of the clicks on his receiver. He can only respond to her suggestions. Rae soon learns that the damage to Hughie's boat will cause it to sink in the next several hours and realizes she must act.
Desperate to gain control of the boat, Rae gives in to Hughie's advances and the two have sex. Afterwards, she fixes them some lemonade, putting a heavy dose of her prescription sedatives into his drink. As a fierce storm comes on, Rae and Hughie come to blows, with Rae eventually shooting Hughie with a harpoon gun and knocking him unconscious. She then sets Hughie adrift in the boat's life raft and sails back to rescue John. Meanwhile, the damage and the storm have caused the other boat to sink almost completely. John swims out of the boat and sets the debris on fire, attracting the attention of Rae, who rescues him from a piece of floating debris.
After John's rescue the couple find the life raft and Rae shoots it with a flare, setting it on fire. The next day they are relaxing on deck when John takes a break from washing Rae's hair to prepare breakfast for his wife. Her eyes closed, Rae feels a pair of hands begin massaging her scalp and assumes it is John, but when the hands turn aggressive she opens her eyes and sees a bloody Hughie Warriner, who tries to strangle her. While Rae struggles, John arrives from below deck. Seeing his wife being attacked, he shoots Hughie in the mouth with their flare gun, killing him.
Main cast
- Sam NeillSam NeillNigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III....
as Capt. John Ingram, R.A.N. - Nicole KidmanNicole KidmanNicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
as Rae Ingram - Billy ZaneBilly ZaneWilliam George "Billy" Zane, Jr. is an American actor, producer and director. He is probably best known for his roles as Caledon Hockley in Titanic, The Phantom from The Phantom, John Wheeler in Twin Peaks and Mr...
as Hughie Warriner
Production
The movie is based on the novel Dead CalmDead Calm
Dead Calm is a 1963 novel by Charles F. Williams, which was the basis for the unreleased film The Deep and the later film Dead Calm .- Plot :...
by Charles Williams
Charles Williams (U.S. author)
Charles Williams was an American writer of hardboiled crime fiction. He is regarded by critics as one of the finest suspense novelists of the 1950s and 1960s. His 1951 debut, the pulp paperback novel Hill Girl, sold over a million copies...
. Other than character names and the scenario of a woman trapped on a boat with a psychopath, the film bears little resemblance to the book, which had several other main characters (including Hughie's wife and another couple), and presented Hughie as a nominally asexual manchild. The movie was filmed over a 14-week span in the Whitsunday Islands
Whitsunday Islands
The Whitsunday Islands are a collection of continental islands of various sizes off the central coast of Queensland, Australia, situated between just south of Bowen and to the north of Mackay, some north of Brisbane. The island group is centred on Whitsunday Island, while the group's commercial...
.
Reception
Dead Calm has a 7.5/10 "fresh" rating at Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
and a critical rating of 95%. According to Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
, Kidman is "excellent throughout, ... [giving] the character of Rae real tenacity and energy;" and the picture is "handsomely produced and inventively directed." Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
wrote that the film "generates genuine tension." Desson Howe of the Washington Post praised the film's creators: "Noyce's direction moves impressively from sensual tenderness (between husband and wife) to edge-of-the-seat horror. With the accomplished editing by Richard Francis-Bruce
Richard Francis-Bruce
Richard Francis-Bruce is an Australian film editor who has received several nominations for the Academy Award for Film Editing.- Career :...
and scoring by Graeme Revell
Graeme Revell
Graeme Revell is a New Zealand film score composer.Revell attended Auckland Grammar School, where he finished his final year in 7A...
, he finds lurking dangers in quiet, peaceful waters."
On the other hand, Caryn James of the New York Times felt that the film was "an unsettling hybrid of escapist suspense and the kind of pure trash that depends on dead babies and murdered dogs for effect," and that Dead Calm "becomes disturbing for all the wrong reasons." A number of critics faulted the film's ending as being over-the-top, with the Posts Howe writing, "... while it's afloat, 'Dead Calm' is a majestic horror cruise. ... For much of the movie, you're enthralled. By the end, you're laughing."
The acting was generally considered excellent, with Zane being cited for injecting "unforgettable humanity and evil puckishness into his role" and being "suitably manic and evil." And while Rita Kempley of the Washington Post wrote "what's most fascinating about it is Rae's place in the pantheon of heroines, an Amazon
Amazons
The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...
for the '90s," the Times James called Kidman's character "tough but stupid."
The film is listed on the New York Times Top 1000 Movies list, derived from editor Peter M. Nichols' The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made (St. Martin's Griffin, 2004).
Box office
Dead Calm grossed $2,444,407 at the box office in Australia, which is equivalent to $4,253,268 in 2009 dollars. It grossed $7,825,009 in the U.S.See also
- The Deep (Orson Welles film)The Deep (Orson Welles film)The Deep is an unfinished film directed by Orson Welles and based on the novel Dead Calm by Charles Williams, which would later be adapted into the film of the same title. Welles produced and wrote the film, and also played the role of Russ Brewer opposite Jeanne Moreau and Laurence Harvey.Welles...
- Cinema of AustraliaCinema of AustraliaCinema of Australia, more commonly referred to as the Australian film industry, refers to the system of production, distribution, and exhibition of films in Australia. Film production commenced in Australia in 1906 with the production of The Story of the Kelly Gang, the earliest feature film made...
External links
- Dead Calm at the National Film and Sound Archive
- Dead Calm (1989) review by Noel Tanti