Directed by Wim Wenders, Submergence is certainly an interesting film that had a lot of potential but really ended up with me scratching my head.
The trailer for Submergence was a thing of beauty in my opinion, it was well edited and had a sense of mystery with it’s intercutting of two people that were separated by seas. The way it was presented here gave me the impression that this film could be fantastic.
Unfortunately this isn’t the case here, as it feels like the film could have more meaning even if the movie was told linearly instead of using flashbacks to establish the main characters connection to each other.
Submergence stars Alicia Vikander & James Mcavoy who both give pretty solid performances here with a lot of emotional depth and I can’t really fault either of them at all here, it’s just the film falls apart in other areas.
The movie plays out mainly by cutting between Vikander researching hydrothermal vents on the seafloor and Mcavoy who is taken prisoner by Jihadists in Africa, I feel like the editing here could have been better executed as it feels like the pacing really suffers at points. As I stated earlier the Trailer in particular did this very well and felt like it was going to be a profound experience. As we progress through the film it becomes clear that Mcavoy’s character is in real trouble, and he gets a lot of time here to shine, specifically interacting with the great Alexander Siddig’s conflicted local doctor (More roles for Siddig please!)
In the end this Submergence feels like it could have be great but it fails to reach the height it was aiming for, that being said the performances are solid and it certainly is an interesting story, a definite odd one we have here.
