Psycho's Movie Reviews #99: Splash! (1984)

Splash is a 1984 American fantasy romantic comedy film directed by Ron Howard, written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, and starring Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah, John Candy, and Eugene Levy. It involves a young man who falls in love with a mysterious woman who is secretly a mermaid. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

The film is notable for being the first film released by Touchstone Pictures, a film label created by Walt Disney Studios that same year in an effort to release films targeted at adult audiences, with mature content not appropriate for the studio's flagship Walt Disney Pictures banner. Splash had received a PG-rating for some profanity and brief nudity. Splash was critically and commercially successful, earning over $69 million on an $11 million budget, and received praise for the acting, humour and chemistry between Hanks and Hannah.

Plot:

In 1964, eight-year-old Allen Bauer and his family are taking a boat tour at Cape Cod. Allen is fascinated by something below the surface and jumps overboard. In the ocean, he encounters a young girl and inexplicably finds himself able to breathe underwater. However, Allen is rescued and pulled back to the surface, and the two are separated. Since no one else saw the girl, Allen comes to believe the encounter was a near-death hallucination.

20 years later in 1984, Allen is now co-owner of a wholesale fruit and vegetable business in New York City with his womanizing brother Freddie. Through the years, Allen’s relationships have failed as he subconsciously seeks the connection he felt with the mysterious girl. Depressed after his latest breakup, Allen returns to Cape Cod, where he encounters eccentric scientist Dr. Walter Kornbluth on a diving expedition. When his motorboat malfunctions, Allen falls into the sea and is knocked unconscious; his wallet drops onto the coral below. He wakes up on a beach, in the presence of a beautiful naked woman who is unable to talk. After kissing him, she dives into the sea, where she transforms into a mermaid. While swimming underwater, she is sighted by Kornbluth.

The mermaid finds Allen's wallet, and uses a sunken ship’s charts to locate New York. She comes ashore naked at the Statue of Liberty and is arrested for indecent exposure. Using information from Allen’s wallet, the police contact him and the mysterious girl is released into his care. She learns how to speak English from watching television, and is eager to explore the city. Unable to say her real name in human language, she selects "Madison" from a Madison Avenue sign. She tells Allen that she will be in New York for "six fun-filled days until the moon is full"; unable to return home if she stays any longer. Despite Madison's occasionally outlandish behaviour, she and Allen fall in love. Allen proposes to Madison, but she declines and runs away. After some contemplation, Madison returns to Allen and agrees to marry him, with the added promise of telling him the truth about herself after an upcoming dignitary dinner to welcome the President.

Meanwhile, Kornbluth, realizing that the naked woman at Liberty Island was the mermaid he encountered, pursues the couple, trying to expose her as a mermaid by splashing her with water. His first attempts are unsuccessful, and Kornbluth ends up with multiple injuries. Finally, he infiltrates the dignitary dinner, splashing Madison with a hose and successfully unmasking her identity. Madison is seized by government agents and taken to a secret lab, headed by Kornbluth's cold-hearted rival Dr. Ross for examination. As Madison withers away in captivity, Kornbluth learns that the scientists are planning to dissect her; he regrets his actions, as he just wanted to prove that he wasn’t crazy.

Allen is shocked by Madison's secret and rejects her, but when he voices his disillusionment to his brother, Freddie lashes out at him, reminding Allen how happy he was with her. Realizing he still loves Madison, Allen confronts the guilt-ridden Kornbluth, who having been rejected by his colleagues despite his discovery, agrees to help rescue her.

Impersonating Swedish scientists, Allen, Freddie, and Kornbluth enter the lab and smuggle Madison outside. Freddie decides to be arrested in Allen's place, while Kornbluth unsuccessfully tries to stop United States troops from catching the couple. Despite being pursued, Allen and Madison make it to New York Harbour. Madison tells Allen that he can survive underwater as long as he is with her, causing Allen to realize she was the girl he had met underwater as a child. Madison warns him that if he comes to live in the sea, he cannot return to land. She jumps in the water when the troops close in on them. When more troops attempt to arrest Allen, he jumps into the water after her, but starts to drown as he cannot swim. Madison kisses him, gifting him the ability to swim and breathe underwater. Frogmen enter the water to recapture Madison and Allen, but the couple fight them off and escape, happily swimming toward what appears to be an underwater kingdom.

Production:

The film was initially set up at United Artists but Grazer decided to take the film elsewhere and took it to The Ladd Company but Alan Ladd Jr. eventually passed on it. According to the documentary on the Splash: 20th Anniversary Edition DVD in 2004, producer Brian Grazer had pitched the film to numerous studios but was turned down repeatedly until Walt Disney Productions, then headed by Ron W. Miller, agreed to produce the film. The key to the proposal's success was that Grazer changed the premise description from the idea of a mermaid adjusting to life in New York City to that about a love story about an ordinary man in New York City meeting a mermaid. An issue at the time of production was the competition between Splash and another announced (but unnamed) mermaid film from Warner Bros. that had lined up Warren Beatty as its star. Director Ron Howard promised the studio that Splash would be filmed more quickly and cheaply than the other film, which eventually fell through. Howard turned down directing Footloose and Mr. Mom to do this movie. Many big name actors such as Jeff Bridges, Chevy Chase, Richard Gere, Dudley Moore, Michael Keaton, Kevin Kline, Bill Murray and John Travolta were all considered for the lead role before the producers decided on the then lesser known Tom Hanks. Steve Guttenberg also auditioned for the role. Before Daryl Hannah was cast as Madison, it had already been turned down by Tatum O'Neal, Michelle Pfeiffer, Lynne Frederick, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Genie Francis, Melanie Griffith, Fiona Fullerton, Diane Lane, Kathleen Turner and Sharon Stone.

Principal photography began on March 1, 1983 and completed on June 30, 1983 in Los Angeles, California and New York City, New York. The beach where Tom Hanks first encounters the nude Daryl Hannah is on the former Gorda Cay in the Bahamas, which now is known as Castaway Cay, the private island of Disney Cruise Line.

Daryl Hannah's mermaid tail was designed and created by Academy Award-winning visual effects artist Robert Short. The tail was fully functional. Hannah swam with the mermaid tail so fast that her safety team could not keep pace with her. According to the DVD documentary, Hannah had been swimming "mermaid" style with her legs bound together since she was a child, due to her fascination with Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" story. However, the exceptionally detailed film tail was difficult to remove. For the sake of efficiency, Hannah at first kept it on while the cast had lunch. In the documentary included on the 20th-anniversary Splash! DVD, Tom Hanks recalled how the other cast members would drop French fries over the side of the tank to her as though she were a trained sea mammal, because she could not leave the water while her legs were "shrink-wrapped".

Release/Reception/Box Office:

Produced on a $11 million budget, it grossed $6.2 million in its opening weekend and finished its run with a gross of $69.8 million in the United States and Canada, making it the tenth highest-grossing film of 1984. The movie was also well received by critics and is considered to be one of the best films of 1984. It earned a 91% "Fresh" rating from the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes based on 43 reviews. The site's consensus states: "A perfectly light, warmly funny romantic comedy that's kept afloat by Ron Howard's unobtrusive direction and charming performances from Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah." Metacritic gave the film a score of 71 based on 15 reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews". A negative review came from Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times who gave the movie 1.5 stars out of 4 and thought the film's biggest failing was casting then-unknown Hanks as the lead rather than the established comedy star John Candy: "They should have made Candy the lover, and Hanks the brother. Then we'd be on the side of this big lunk who suddenly has a mermaid drop into his life."

Colin Greenland reviewed Splash for Imagine magazine, and stated that "Splash is an adult film that has the grace to treat fantasy with sensitivity and a sense of humour."

Budget $11 million

Box office $69.8 million

My Review:

I will admit I'm not a romantic comedies fan {there's only two I'll watch, this and The Wrong Missy}. One thing for certain though, I adore Splash! It is a beautiful, charming and sweet romantic comedy that has quickly become a favourite of mine. For instance the whole film is beautifully shot, with lovely cinematography and stunning underwater sequences. Plus New York looks absolutely gorgeous here.

The music is also delightful. The song in the end credits was so beautiful, I nearly cried. Maybe it was also to do with how it is sung; the vocals were sublime, and never spoiled the mood of the song. The script is funny and touching, more the latter than the former, but who cares? There are still some funny parts of the movie. The direction from Ron Howard was secure and focused throughout.

There were so many charming scenes in Splash! The ending certainly was exactly that, and a bit of a tear jerker as well. Another charming scene that springs to mind was the ice skating scene. Not only how it was filmed, but also the music featured. A perfect choice of music for that particular scene, the Skaters Waltz. I also thought that the movie's length was perfect, and the pacing was just fine.

And I can't write this review without mentioning the performances. Every single person did a superb job. Tom Hanks is charismatic and likable enough and was perfectly cast as Allan Bauer, a successful businessman who falls in love with a beautiful mermaid named Maddison. Speaking of Maddison, didn't Daryl Hannah look gorgeous here? She is a generally ignored actress, and she was positively charming. Eugene Levy plays a sort of bad guy, and he is funny as well as detestable. However, the film's humour comes from the late John Candy who is hilarious as Allan's brother.

All in all, I adore this movie. Out of all the romantic comedies I have seen, this has to be the most charming and possibly irresistible. I have been vocal before about not trying to take IMDb ratings to heart, but 6.2 is too low for this movie. It does deserve a higher rating than that. While not the best movie ever made, it is certainly one of my all time favourite movies for a number of reasons; 8/10.