The Block Island Sound

A fisherman wakes up on his boat with no idea what's going on. His son grows concerned as the man seems to be acting strangely. Standing around staring into space, leaving fridge doors open, taking the boat out at night. Then the old man takes the boat out one night, and when they find the boat, he's gone. Eventually he washes up on shore.

For a long stretch in the middle, the movie almost seems like it's about grief and mourning. How people deal, or don't deal, with loss. The son, Harry, seems like he can't accept that things just happen. He drinks, he pursues anything that might suggest this wasn't just an unfortunate accident. One of his sisters seems like she just wants to focus on putting affairs in order, and really has no patience for Harry's struggles. Audry, the other sister, is left trying to play peacemaker. Or maybe it's the role she naturally assumes. Each of them trying to grab some control of a situation beyond their control.

It's a little strange to watch, because we know Harry is right, even if we aren't sure exactly what's going on. During the moments where the old man (and later, Harry) act strangely, there's this low "growling" as the captions describe it coming through electronics that seemingly only they can hear. So this is clearly not just depression or alcoholism. But Harry either doesn't grasp that something's happening, or doesn't want to admit it, so everyone just keeps treating it as Harry refusing to grow up, as Jen so helpfully puts it.

The movie doesn't quite succeed in creating the air of dread or suspense that I think it attempts. Mostly because it's obvious no one has any idea what's happening. There's no reason to regard Harry as anything other than a dead man walking, and the movie didn't make me care that much about anybody else. It's kind of like following a character you know Jason Voorhees is gonna kill. There's not a chance for them to escape or turn the tables, they're just running out the clock.

Also, I don't think they needed to repeat what Audry told her daughter earlier about her work with fish right at the end. It's meant as an explanation for why this is happening, but I think it was pretty clear by then. Especially since a different character had already explained it to us maybe 15 minutes earlier. Yeah, Audry thinks he's nuts, but again, we the audience know that he's not.