Director Wim Wenders has made some extraordinary films during his remarkable career, including Wings of Desire, The American Friend, The End of Violence, Buena Vista Social Club, Pina, and Paris, Texas.
His latest film, Submergence, is not part of that rarefied company; it’s a mess and completely at odds with itself at more than one juncture. It’s shocking to see a film that feels this miscalculated from the get-go, especially when the directorial hand that’s guiding the production has been responsible for so many wonderful motion pictures from throughout the decades.
Starring the always-intense James McAvoy and the very busy Alicia Vikander, this artsy drama feels far too contrived to ever feel organic, with an odd sense of tone that never felt fully fleshed out. When a film decides to mix it up and do things differently, especially within the confines of a well-tread genre, the results can be bracing and exciting.
In “Submergence,” you get the sense that Wenders and his collaborators were trying to take some familiar ingredients and then spice them up through aesthetics and narrative drive, but it just never takes on anything with a complete form of its own.
The script by Erin Dignam (The Last Face, Denial), which was adapted from the novel by J.M. Ledgard, is all over the place, and not in an overstuffed but interesting sort of way, but rather, in a needlessly meandering and unfocused manner. And at a certain point, it becomes abundantly clear that the diverse geographical locations that figure into the action were more of an interest to Wenders and his creative team than fleshing out anything that truly gelled in a cohesive and satisfying way.
The dual-edged plot concerns a random encounter made by two very different people which blossoms into a deep romance, one an MI6 spy (McAvoy), and the other a marine biologist- mathematician (Vikander). He’s being held captive in Somalia and she’s preparing to explore the depths of the ocean on the other side of the world.
The ping-pong, non-linear style of the script’s structure means that we spend some time here, and then we spend some time there, and because of the disparate nature of the creative ingredients, nothing ever feels fluid. McAvoy and Vikander do all they can and more with the lopsided material they’ve been saddled with, and because of their forceful performances, the film stays watchable, even when the story strains credibility.
The thundering musical score by Fernando Velázquez has a retro-jazzy quality that further amplifies the oddity of the entire presentation.
The real star of Submergence is ultra-gifted cinematographer Benoit Debie, who in film after film, has proven himself to be a world-class image-maker with few contemporary equals (previous credits include Enter the Void, Lost River, Spring Breakers, and Love, to name only a bunch).
There are any number of individual visual moments in Submergence that qualify as gorgeous and impressive, but there’s a hollow quality to the entire piece that becomes evident when the events that comprise the story start feeling completely absurd.
The prospect of collaborating with Wenders was likely a big draw for both McAvoy and Vikander, who have both appeared in a large number of films over the last few years, and always seem up for challenges with their choice in material. It’s a shame that more time wasn’t spent deciding what this movie truly wanted to become.
It should also be noted that Submergence lists more than 25 producers in the credits, which tells you all you need to know about how certain independent films are being financed in our current cinematic landscape. Available on Blu-ray/DVD and via various streaming providers.
Review by Nick Clement
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Submergence
Summary
An overstuffed and unfocused affair. Submergence has a hollow quality to the entire piece that becomes evident when the events that comprise the story start feeling completely absurd.
