Jenn (Kiersey Clemons) is Robinson Crusoe’ed on a beautiful desert island. Since she is resourceful, she is able to make the most of a bad situation and soon proves to be adept at survival. Eventually, Jenn realizes she isn’t the only inhabitant of the island as there is a hungry fish monster that likes to come out of the water and feed on human flesh.
I’m a sucker for survival pictures (especially ones with monsters in them), so for me the first half of Sweetheart really worked. The long, dialogue free stretches where Clemons collected her wits, gauged the situation, and made a daily survival routine was endearing and absorbing. Clemons is particularly fun to watch and has screen presence to spare. In fact, she has so much presence that the film sort of takes a nosedive about halfway through once more shipwrecked people wind up on the island. Having to share the spotlight with two more characters (and annoying ones at that) creates less opportunities for her to shine, which is unfortunate. Thankfully, the new arrivals don’t last too long.
I guess the inspiration here was A Quiet Place since there are lots of scenes where Clemons must remain perfectly quiet and/or still to avoid detection by the monster. While these scenes are mostly effective, the fact that the monster is a pretty lame CGI beastie kind of takes some of the fun out of it. At least director J.D. Dillard keeps things moving along at a snappy pace. It’s refreshing when a director takes a slim premise and doesn’t try to draw things out too much.
It's just a shame the climax is weak. It feels a little bit like Predator Lite, which would’ve been okay if the editing didn’t hack the final fight to nearly incomprehensible pieces. It’s nothing that derails the film, but I’m sure it would’ve skated by with *** had the editing in the finale been more concise.
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