Submergence
Director: Wim Wenders
Year Released: 2017
Rating: 2.0
Biomathematician Danielle (Alicia Vikander) and "engineer" (but actually a spy) James (James McAvoy) meet at a resort in France, have a brief but memorable affair and then separate: Danielle boards a submersible to examine super deep waters (in a very risky mission) while he's captured and tortured by Islamic extremists in Somalia. I must confess, I enjoyed the first hour of this quite a lot, with the nice shots of the French coast and the unlikely romance between a researcher and a special agent (so cozy!), but once they're apart the connection is lost: the scenes of McAvoy being smacked around become tiresome (yes, yes, jihad and all that horseshit) and the attempt to make it 'spiritual'/'psychic' (when all else fails, quote Donne) leads to a gauzy and most unsatisfying conclusion. It's no surprise Wenders took on this project considering his past interest in the metaphysical, but Wings of Desire it is not.
