There’s a 1962 film called Knife in the Water about a couple on a yacht that pick up a dangerous hitchhiker that puts their relationship to the test. I like that film a lot, but it’s so much subtext that the film has to hit you at the right time. Dead Calm takes that subtext and brings it to the surface, using a novel by Charles Williams that was inspired by the real-life murders of family sailing off the Florida coast. Dead Calm’s key difference is that the husband (Sam Neill) gets separated early on, leaving the wife (Nicole Kidman) to fend off the hitchhiker (Billy Zane). What transpires has all the heat and intensity of characters under extreme pressure. This is some of the best work by all three leads, and while its thrills are more at the surface, there’s so much more being said with their faces and their physical actions than with the dialogue.
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