There’s a reason why I do not dive into (pun partially intended) many sea-survival thriller movies, whether the animal antagonist is a shark, piranha, giant squid, etc. The story isn’t quite often the issue. Although if you have seen one, then you have perhaps seen them all. Steven Spielberg’s Jaws film adaptation, the early 2010s’ Piranha remakes— Alexandre Aja’s Piranha 3D and John Gulager’s Piranha 3DD—, and Sean Byrne’s Dangerous Animals have different levels of appeal.
Without a doubt, Jaws is a beloved classic by filmmaking standards. The Piranha movies have a charm, especially because they lean towards dark comedy. Dangerous Animals is a sign that the subgenre can still be decent in this current decade. Heck, the success of Renny Harlin’s Deep Blue Sea refuses to sink due to the star power of LL Cool J and Samuel L. Jackson. Even then, if the overall screenwriting is decent and the filmmaking miraculously brings it to life well enough, then it cannot be that bad…right?
If Dangerous Animals can make over four times its budget with a high critical rating, then I would have hoped for the same here. Jonathan Zuck’s Chum begins with an opening monologue that would have been better off just showing viewers what happens. The thing about good movies is that they should grasp you within minutes. Unfortunately, I find myself losing interest in the opening scene alone. The narrative combines the disasters of marriage and relationships with the disasters of marine life. The result is, well, still a disaster.
Don’t Bite the Hand That Feeds You…
Chum follows a lawyer named Tina Barclay (Alice Eve) and her activist husband, Tom (Eric Michael Cole), stranded with their closest friends at sea the day after their wedding ceremony. The script does have some promising aspects to it. Barclay and her husband butt heads when it comes to their work and passions. Yet, again the movie is all talk and no show in how it communicates this idea from one character to another or to viewers.
Marriage is built on multiple quality traits, and a lot of what occurs here could be avoided by actually speaking to each other. Barclay and Tom can easily make compromises, as spouses should, rather than resort immediately to divorce/ separation. The friends’ yacht captain, Mackey (Vince Jolivette), can easily tell his guests about the small ship’s safety precautions so that nobody gets thrown overboard, as anybody with responsibilities should have. Human antagonist, Roy (Jim Klock), can ask for help in his quest for vengeance or justice instead of doing so solo.
Below the Surface
Sadly, all of this miscommunication represents a large failure in what the movie aims to accomplish, or what it thinks it is accomplishing. Chum ends with the main character on the news stating, “Climate change is something that the big corporations are not doing enough to fix.” Ironically, so much goes wrong with the screenwriting. It has to do with a lack of smart narration in favor of likely prompting artificial intelligence to make a story happen. Wedding guest, Britney (Lisa Yaro), is the first of the friend group to be killed by the great white shark—playing into “the Black person dies first” cliché. That isn’t to mention that everyone in this friend group comes from a place of wealth—playing into the “eat the rich” trope.
As clever as this independent film wants to be, it cannot outrun the fact that the visual effects seen throughout are clearly made with artificial intelligence. That is, unless the visual effects artists are that bad at their job. From the death of Roy’s wife to the death of Roy himself, all of the shark sequences appear horrible. Every pause of the screen is only asking for trouble, and trouble is always there. At least with Jaws, a physical shark is made by actual human hands, and for decades, it has been put on display at Universal Studios locations around the world. Chum cheats itself out of a good time, or at the bare minimum, an okay time, as it prefers to use AI, allegedly. The editing, the music, and the suspicious automatic dialogue replacement (ADR), and the performances are also at stake for that reason. It’s just lazy and lousy material all over.
Character Development and Performances
Undoubtedly, producer Alice Eve is Chum‘s main attraction. I don’t think I’d have given this movie a single chance if it weren’t for her presence. As a British-American woman who has left a long-term relationship and then divorced from another relationship, the role of Tina Barclay is best suited for somebody such as her. However, as with the rest of the filmmaking elements, Zuck and his co-writers’ script completely fails to keep up with Eve’s talent. If I were Tom, then I would have made the marriage work no matter the cost. I love Alice Eve, and she still looks breathtaking at her current age, but even her part in the movie as both the producer and the lead actor proves disappointing.
For a movie with otherwise no character development—the best man, Rick (Johnny Gaffney) wants to make out, Britney wants to have a wild time, and Barclay’s younger sister Sadie (Elle Haymond) finds every opportunity to chip in her two cents, which never make any sense—, every other character is useless to me. Roy is an antagonist, but one to sympathize with. His backstory is very relatable, considering that he is making up for the loss of a loved one. It’s one of the few rare human aspects that I feel can be redeeming if the movie wasn’t already tone-deaf as a whole. His fate becomes: a bad guy who eventually dies.
Final Thoughts on Chum
What Chum misses is depth. That’s why it’s so soulless to watch from its opening shots to its final cut to black. Despite claiming to fuel its story with “courage and consistency”, the movie is afraid of risk and forgets humanity just to underperform. The need to send a message about the environment means nothing because the movie is lifeless. It’s redundant to do so when the notion that filmmaking uses data centers and ruins a people’s water supply never escapes my mind. Alice Eve deserves greater than that. I can’t say that my first impression is that I’m mad or annoyed; I’m just not pleased with the end product.
Rating: 0.5 out of 5 stars
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