Just if you live in idyllic place doesn’t mean that your life is going to be idyllic. That includes protagonist of Blue Crush, 2002 sports drama directed by John Stockwell. Despite having the good fortune of living in Hawaii, every day is a struggle for Anne Marie (played by Kate Bosworth), young woman who have been years ago left by her mother and forced to take care of younger sister Penny (played by Mika Boreem). The only way out of poverty seems to be surfing, a sport for which she had talent. But the injuries, lack of opportunities and self-confidence made her surf only as an amateur. In order to surf on famous North Shore, she is forced to support herself as cleaning woman in one of the hotels, which is barely enough for renting small hut she shares with best friends Eden (played by Michelle Rodriguez) and Lena (played by Sanoe Lake). Real problems for Anne Marie begin when she meets Matt (played by Matthew Davis), NFL player whose team is spending vacation in Hawaii.
At first glance Blue Crush looks like a “high concept” with the premise that could be best described as Surf Girls of Maui, which is the title of magazine article by Susan Orlean, reporter made famous for inspiring Adaptation, which has served as basis for the script co-written by Stockwell and Lizzy Weiss. The concept is very simple and characteristic for many of Hollywood’s shallow films, which in the particular case reflects in minimalistic plot, plenty of cliches and even CGI effects are below Hollywood standards. There are three factors that improve general impression of Blue Crush. The first can be found in surfing scenes, which are directed superbly and would awe even viewers who don’t like that exotic, hard, dangerous (and pretty expensive) sport. Director John Stockwell has made such scenes by combining documentary stock footage, CGI and professional female surfers who double for the cast members (with exception of Sanoe Lake, Hawaiian who is surfer in real life). The second factor is Stockwell and Weiss being able to smuggle some subversive content into the film – poverty, teenagers indulging in alcohol, drugs and sex, as well as sharp class, social and cultural divisions between native Hawaiians and arrogant tourists from US mainland. Third, and probaly the most important factor (at least from commercial standpoint) is the plot that had perfect excuse for the main female cast members to spend 95 percent of running time in bikinis (and Kate Bosworth even briefly appears nude). Stockwell had good experience in smuggling such content into PG-13 film in his previous work Crazy/Beautiful. Although not too deep, Blue Crush provides enough eye candy for less demanding viewers and its relatively good performance at box office was justified. In 2011 an unrelated direct-to-video sequel under title Blue Crush 2 was made.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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