Under Paris Review – Splashes into Shark-Filled Chaos
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Fifty years later, Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel “Jaws” continues to inspire filmmakers to create their own terrifying versions of the shark attack horror story, although Steven Spielberg was the first to make a direct adaptation of the novel. The 2024 French film “Under Paris” (Original title: Sous la Seine) is nowhere near as anxiety-inducing as Spielberg’s “Jaws,” but it’s got plenty of sharks and a spectacularly far-fetched ending that makes it worth a watch for genre fans.
Directed by Xavier Gens, who co-wrote “Under Paris” with Yannick Dahan and Maud Heywang, the film stars Bérénice Bejo as Sophia Assalas, a marine scientist keen on cleaning up the earth’s oceans. The story opens with Sophia and a group of other scientists monitoring a shark named Lilith that displays an extraordinary growth spurt. Lilith turns murderously violent after a scientist pokes her for a sample, killing most of Sophia’s team. Three years later, when Lilith mysteriously turns up in the Seine just days before Paris is set to host the Olympics, it’s up to Sophia and the Seine Police to stop the shark from causing a bloodbath. However, an environmentalist group led-by Mika (Léa Léviant) has other plans for Lilith.
“Under Paris” delves into the classic “man versus nature” theme, highlighting the worrying pollution of the oceans while also mocking woke environmentalists. In fact, it’s hard to say if it was intentional or not, but Xavier Gens and his team mock a whole lot of things in the tale. Unfortunately, the humor runs thin in the script, which isn’t even as serious as it wants to be. All those looking to pit humans against killer animals and monsters need to start taking notes from Takashi Yamazaki’s “Gojira -1.0” / “Godzilla Minus One” which came out in 2023, on how to make an entertainingly larger-than-life saga.
Among all the elements of the film, what “Under Paris”/“Sous La Seine” gets perfectly right is its timing – the release was timed just weeks before Paris’s turn to host the Olympics triathlon, and in the movie, too, the murderous shark enters Paris waters the week of the triathlon. Sophia Assalas and the police urge the mayor to consider canceling the event before the shark threat is neutralized, but the authorities, of course prioritize profit over human lives. In real life, many French citizens have been protesting the staggering costs of hosting the Olympics, especially the billion-pound plan to clean up the Seine. Some protests have even planned to defecate in the Seine as an act of protest, a hilarious piece of news that’s been all over the internet. So, the plot in “Under Paris” timely channels public sentiment by ruining the triathlon with a murderous shark in the fictional film.
Choppily paced, the 1 hour and 44-minute thriller packs in some tense suspense here and there, but overall, isn’t as terrifying as it could’ve been. Much of this is due to the makers rarely showing Lilith, making one wonder if they didn’t have the budget for the special effects team. However, the cinematography charmingly captures Paris as a city, which looks a lot more romantic than it really is, especially along the Seine.
There’s a lot of focus on the human characters in “Under Paris”, but none of the actors are entertaining or memorable enough to hold your attention. Bérénice Bejo as Sophia Assalas is a clichéd character: a scientist scarred by her past who, for no real reason, finds herself with the cops during their mission to stop Lilith from going berserk. Thanks to the one-dimensional characters, you cannot help but root for the sharks to take over the world. So, if you, like me, end up cheering for Lilith the shark and her kind, the climax will leave you satisfied – it’s epic, exaggerated, but really cool.
Rating: 6 on 10. Watch “Under Paris” on Netflix.
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