Page 30 - ARUBA TODAY

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Friday 10 January 2020

Kristen Stewart can’t save

‘Underwater’ from sinking

By MARK KENNEDY when an earthquake rocks nation of steely nerves and
Welcome to January, their sprawling underwater harrowing expressions. She
which, in terms of qual- station 7 miles below the also spends a suspiciously
ity movies, is the worst, the Pacific Ocean. large amount of time in her
lowest, the abyss. Actu- The pressure down there is underwear.
ally, that’s pretty accurate 8 tons per square inch and Alas, the pretty cool special
when it comes to the latest, its firmly pressing down on effects break down when
straight-to-January release Stewart to save this film. it comes to the monsters,
“Underwater,” which steals Along for the harrowing which resemble Swamp
from “The Abyss” and many ride is Vincent Cassel as the Things bred with Olive Gar-

This image released by Twentieth Century Fox shows Kristen other movies like “Alien” rig captain, Jessica Hen- den calamari. When they
Stewart in a scene from "Underwater." and even “Godzilla.” wick as a marine biology are just glimpses, they’re
Associated Press The filmmakers started with researcher and two tech terrifying. The filmmakers
an overused thriller cliche guys played by John Galla- should have left them in
— trapped workers far from gher Jr. and T.J. Miller. The shadows. The screenplay
home, often in space. This role Miller has assumed is by Brian Duffield and Adam
time they’re deep under also the wiseguy jokester, Cozad does try to reach
the waves. Then disaster but he manages to land for depth in this disaster-
strikes, forcing them out. not a single funny line. monster hybrid by won-
Then a monster or two are You know the drill here: dering if humans messing
added. Everyone making it Don’t get too close to any with Mother Nature is the
hopes all the suckers (sorry, of these characters. Not all cause of such misery. “We
viewers) never saw “The are going to make it. They did this!” the marine biol-
Abyss,” “The Rift,” “Sphere,” have to move fast in knee- ogy researcher screams.
“The Rig” or half a dozen deep water through tun- “We took too much! We’re
other films that plow the nels and across the ocean not supposed to be down
same field. floor with fast-depleting ox- here!” But that’s as deep
“ Underwater ” certainly ygen. Oh, by the way, the (sorry) as the filmmakers go.
isn’t as bad as it could have drilling seems to have awo- Stewart begins the film in
been but it is leaking badly ken mysterious sea beasts. a melancholic mood —
long before it reaches its Director William Eubank “There’s a comfort to cyni-
limp conclusion, despite keeps the action taut and cism. There’s a lot less to
strong work by Kristen Stew- the look of the film is re- lose,” she wonders — and
art doing her best impres- alistically impressive and ends her odyssey trium-
sion of Sigourney Weaver in dark, with grimy, dirty work- phant, hopeful and certain.
“Aliens.” Following a mer- ers donning cool dive suits But she missed all those
cifully short scene-setting that make them each look emergency computer an-
sequence, Stewart and a like Transformers. His cam- nouncements along the
ragtag group of deep-sea era often goes tight on the way that warned her film
miners find themselves the shocked faces inside the was in trouble: “Structural
only survivors among an helmets. Stewart, in par- failure imminent! Structural
original 316-person crew ticular, shines with a combi- failure imminent!”q

'Prozac Nation' author Elizabeth

Wurtzel dies at age 52

NEW YORK (AP) — Eliza- she fully acknowledged.
beth Wurtzel, whose blunt Wurtzel wrote of growing
and painful confessions of up in a home torn by di-
her struggles with addic- vorce, of cutting herself
tion and depression in the when she was in her early
best-selling "Prozac Nation" teens, and of spending her
made her a voice and a adolescence in a storm of
target for an anxious gen- tears, drugs, bad love af-
eration, died Tuesday at fairs and family fights.
age 52. Wurtzel's husband, "I don't mean to sound like
Jim Freed, told The Associ- a spoiled brat," she wrote. "I
ated Press that she died at know that into every sunny
a Manhattan hospital after life a little rain must fall and
a long battle with cancer. all that, but in my case the
"Prozac Nation" was pub- crisis-level hysteria is an all-
lished in 1994 when Wurtzel too-recurring theme."
was in her mid-20s and set Wurtzel became a celebri-
This undated photo provided off a debate that lasted ty, a symbol and, for some,
by Penguin Random House for much of her life. Critics a punchline. Newsweek
shows the book cover of Eliza-
beth Wurtzel's memoir, "Pro- praised her for her candor called her ''the famously
zac Nation." and accused her of self-pity depressed Elizabeth Wurtz-
Associated Press and self-indulgence, vices el.'' q