Blue Lagoon: The Awakening

Blue Lagoon: The Awakening
DVD cover
Genre
  • Romance
  • Teen
Based on The Blue Lagoon
by H. Devere Stacpoole
Screenplay by
Directed by
Starring
Music by Tree Adams
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
Production
Executive producer(s)
Producer(s)
  • Kyle Clark
  • Nellie Nugiel
Cinematography
Editor(s) Josh Beal
Running time 89 minutes
Production company(s)
  • PeaceOut Productions
  • Silver Screen Pictures
  • Sony Pictures Television
  • Storyline Entertainment
Distributor Sony Pictures Television
Release
Original network Lifetime
Original release June 16, 2012 (2012-06-16)
External links
Website

Blue Lagoon: The Awakening is a 2012 American made-for-television film that premiered on Lifetime on June 16, 2012.[1] Indiana Evans and Brenton Thwaites star in the film, which is based on the novel The Blue Lagoon and its previous film adaptations. It was a major departure from previous Blue Lagoon films in several respects. The setting is contemporary, whereas the previous films were all set in the Victorian era; the lead characters were raised in normal society and are marooned as teenagers, rather than growing up on the island; and roughly equal time is devoted to the uncivilized world of the island and the human society the characters were born into. Christopher Atkins, the male lead of the 1980 film The Blue Lagoon, also appears in the film.[1]

Plot

Emma and Dean are high school students on a class trip to Trinidad to build a school for less fortunate children. Emma is the star pupil with excellent grades and plans for her life set out before her. When the high school quarterback begins flirting with her, her friends pressure her to start a relationship with him, but she instead continues throwing furtive glances at Dean, a mysterious loner who routinely gets in trouble and doesn't socialize much since his mother passed years earlier. After his knife is confiscated, his father pulls strings to get his son back on the trip. On their first night in Trinidad they separately attend a boat party, where Emma is hurt to see one of her friends kissing the quarterback. During the boat party, Emma falls overboard when the party is interrupted by a police raid. Dean jumps into the water and helps her into a dinghy. Not wanting to get into any more trouble, Dean severs the rope attaching the dinghy to the party boat, only to find it has no motor.

The pair drift to an island, avoiding dangerous rocks by using the one paddle in the dinghy. They search the island for life, but learn they are alone, and now stranded, the dinghy having washed away while they were exploring. Back home, their parents, alerted that the pair was last seen on the party boat, desperately search for them. Wondering if they will ever be rescued, Emma and Dean must rely on each other to survive. Together they learn to build a fire, fish, and find food. At first they are friends, but eventually their bond evolves into a romantic relationship. When they find a skeleton of presumably the last person stranded on the island, Dean calms her by kissing her and the two give in to their growing feelings by having sex.

After extensive searching, the Trinidad government officially gives up on the two, while Dean's father Jack and Emma's mother Barbara stay longer and privately fund their own search. As the search remains fruitless and they can no longer neglect their other responsibilities, they both return home. The morning after their sexual encounter, Emma finds Dean digging a grave for the skeleton. When she questions his behavior he becomes irritable, but she eventually coaxes him into admitting he was hoping to find closure over the death of his mother. Dean tells Emma he never attended his mother's funeral out of guilt over inadvertently causing the accident that killed her, while Emma reveals that the path she is on in life was set out for her by her parents and she never really questioned it. As their sexual relations continue they share further intimate details, including a mutual desire to eventually have children, but the difficulty of life on the island and concern about her loved ones is increasingly a strain on Emma.

After being stranded for over 100 days, they are rescued by a tourist helicopter. They are met by family, friends and the media. Emma is thrust back into a more popular position in school while Dean, still somewhat of an outcast, refrains from approaching her in public. Readjusting to their everyday lives, their relationship becomes somewhat strained and distant. Emma attends the prom, and Dean eventually decides to go as well after a little push by his father. At the prom, Emma spots Dean outside, watching her through the window as it is pouring rain on him. Emma goes out to meet him after encouragement from her best friend Lizzie. Emma and Dean kiss passionately and then dance together.

Cast

Production

Male lead Brenton Thwaites recounted that he had never heard of the Blue Lagoon films before, and upon being cast he watched the previous two films for research, though he admitted he couldn't bring himself to watch Return to the Blue Lagoon in its entirety.[2]

During filming of the scenes in the lagoon, Thwaites and co-star Indiana Evans were so cold that they couldn't talk properly, necessitating that automated dialogue replacement be applied to these scenes.[2]

Reception

Blue Lagoon: The Awakening received more mixed reviews than the previous two films in the franchise, and was often compared favorably to the critically reviled 1980 film. Linda Stasi commented in The New York Post, "Unlike the original where nudie scenes were followed by fornicating turtles (kill me!), here their 'awakening' is tastefully done with nothing much showing except their emotions." She assessed the film overall as silly but enjoyable.[3] In contrast to Stasi, Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cited the lack of physical explicitness in the sex scenes as a major weak point of the film, and said the ending was "particularly weak and nonsensical".[4] However, Mike Hale of The New York Times shared Stasi's impression of the film as a solid guilty pleasure. He commented that "the new film lacks the glowing cinematography of Néstor Almendros, who was nominated for an Oscar for 'The Blue Lagoon.' But under the direction of Mikael Salomon and Jake Newsome, 'The Awakening' offers occasional honest moments of humor and adolescent angst: Ms. Evans and Mr. Thwaites are in their early 20s and better actors than Ms. Shields and Mr. Atkins were in their teens."[5]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Harris, Will (June 16, 2012). "Blue Lagoon: The Awakening". The A.V. Club.
  2. 1 2 Ng, Philiana (June 15, 2012). "Back to 'Blue Lagoon': Rising Heartthrob Brenton Thwaites on Remaking an Erotic Camp Classic". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  3. ↑ Stasi, Linda (June 14, 2012). "Different Shade of 'Blue'". The New York Post. Retrieved 6 June 2018.
  4. ↑ Owen, Rob (June 14, 2012). "Back to 'Blue Lagoon'". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 6 June 2018.
  5. ↑ Hale, Mike (June 15, 2012). "Smile! It's Time for a Guilty Plunge Into Summer TV". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 June 2018.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.