Scared of the ocean? “Nowhere,” a movie directed by Albert Pintó in which the infamous “Titanic” and a history of totalitarian regimes meet, will make you face your phobia.
The newly released survival movie emphasizes the experience that many refugees desperately endure while fleeing their war-torn country in hopes for a better chance at life.
“Nowhere” initiates the scene by presenting the love of two soon-to-be parents who had dreams of finding refuge in a secure and sheltered homeland. Interestingly, the only way they were able to escape was to hide themselves in transportation containers traveling across the sea. To add to the already intense emotions of starting a family in a war-torn country, the two star-crossed lovers were ripped apart from each other after being separated into two different storage containers.
Although the storyline sounds enticing, the movie itself isn’t all that intriguing. The first 20 minutes are incredibly engaging in its effort to highlight the tragedies of fateful or forced deaths. However, the rest of the movie is a bit cliché and follows a pretty typical survival storyline.
First, the protagonist is over-confident in a low rate of success situation, but then encounters a situation to which their confidence plummets, leaving them with just pure hope.
Second, their hope converts into a split second of bliss when they discover a rescue option, only made available when they shine a light towards the sky, use a flare gun, send a smoke signal for help or the typical option: draw SOS in the sand. In this case, it was using a piece of glass to reflect light from the sun to a plane that was flying overhead.
Third, when all hope is lost, the protagonist resorts to the last option, like how Rose drifts along the ocean on a door. Of course, this is the most illogical solution, but it somehow ends up being the choice that saves lives.
The only thing that saves the movie is Anna Castillo, the actress playing the protagonist, Mia. There are multiple disappointing choices in the film’s directing, but Castillo’s performance makes it easy to overlook these mistakes. She portrays the overbearing and overwhelming nature of a single-character survival incredibly well. After being split from her partner, she’s forced to witness the gory manslaughter of many of the people she was initially in the container with. Still alone, she is faced with enduring the unhumanistic birth of her newborn daughter, Noa, in a container half-filled with water.
Although the storyline is predictable, there are still heartracing moments where Mia learns how to increase her chances of survival. Luckily, Mia finds a sharp object to pry open the ceiling of the container, which creates a world of opportunities such as fishing, waving for a rescue and getting to drier ground.
As viewers watch her go through these deathly experiences, we’re only left to wonder what we would do or if we would even survive. Some may argue, however, whether Mia’s newborn baby helps or hinders her chances at survival. On one hand, the baby takes up more of her own energy and resources, but on the other, it gives her the motivation to survive as she’s not just living for herself anymore.
Even if “Nowhere” is an addition to the list of repetitive survivalist movies, it has graciously hit the second spot on Netflix’s Top 10 Movies Today ranking list — and deservingly so. Although it isn’t anything short of “been there, done that,” the mesmerizing visuals, the haunting soundtrack and the outstanding performance by Castillo invites you to doubt yourself and explore the depths of your own consciousness.
Rating: 3/5
This review is simply dreadful: Self-centered, bored, arrogant, and grossly insensitive. It would take days to address all the obtuseness here. I’ll settle for just one point: its position within the genre of survival literature, with all the attendant conventions of signaling, et al., that you so detest, means that it places itself within a genre (ever heard of a genre?) — I.e., that of survival at sea. Responsible critique of this piece would require that you approach it with something other than a sledgehammer. You have zero affinity for film or literary criticism, just FYI. So until you get a clue, why not just keep your ‘opinions’ to yourself, and leave the airways to those who can actually see some of what’s playing out in front of them?