Secret Mermaid Spy Network

Aquamarine (2006)

Rating ... A (97)

Ever heard the expression "White Lightning?" If Burt Reynold's filmography comes to mind we're probably on the same wavelength, but I unavoidably associate the term with an oddly relevant tidbit of Magic history and yet another admittedly hilarious rules nightmare from the - big surprise here - post-Academy bannings period where unsuspecting opponents were faced with a game-breaking triad of Knight tokens that came out of nowhere. By default my mind tends to wander towards Magic in the absence of anything suitably diverting, and after the initial temptation to disregard Aquamarine as unusually amusing teeny-bopper fluff, the film's bombshell ending of down-to-earth wisdom and euphoric, magical uplift triggered by gradual understanding and careful causality left me swooning. Not all surprises merit comparisons to Waylay and White Lightning but a perceptive character study-cum-dissection of love and infatuation masquerading as kiddie-lit fodder is quite simply the best Trojan horse I've seen since ever.

As fortune would have it, the term also suitably describes one of the first things you'll notice about Aquamarine. It's sweltering outside, though not the belligerent red-hot of Do the Right Thing. Rather it's the squinty brand of a noonday sun whose white-hot glare bombards our protagonists - a pair of tweener girls killing time at the beach and trying to forget the separation anxiety resulting from one of them moving away. Like all blissfully solipsistic kiddos, Claire and Hailey haven't entirely ruled out the possibility of an instant solution to their irrevocable quandry, and the film wryly coincides with their fantasies with the advent of its eponymous mermaid, an effervescent concoction of bouncy energy and irresistable scatterbrain who helpfully offers them a wish if they can snag her a mate to demonstrate that love exists - a concept unfamiliar to her species but nevertheless kickass because it means rescinding her arranged marriage.

Exceptional in its careful positioning of girls in delicate adolescence, Aquamarine alternates between sunny exposition and its characters' vivacious exploits, many of which end up revealing some adorable facet of naiveté concerning how the girls perceive themselves and their environment. Claire and Hailey keep mindful tabulation of other gals who flaunt their assets, predictably expressive of feelings of inadequacy associated with an uncomfortable age, and a run-in with effusive starfish earrings sweetly suggests the degree to which the girls' self-image is based on how other people view them. Dopey one-liners are no stranger to Jessica Bendinger and John Quaintance's screenplay but its unforced interactions spectacularly develop the nuanced relations between the trio of protagonists. Even before Aquamarine enters the picture the film is hard at work, nimbly scrutinizing Claire and Haley's friendship and elevating what could have easily been sluffed off as Cosmo BFF status into a genuine bond where the girls' shared trust, openness, and jocundity does not completely mask undercurrents of emotional fissure and self-interest. After Claire and Hailey's beachfront conversation, they happen upon Claire's grandparents who playfully pretend to have disposed of lifeguard and local hottie Raymond - much to the girl's dismay - as way of bonding with them via acknowledgement of their current fascinations. Moments later, Hailey reproduces the same trite fakeout upon Claire to implicitly derive self-worth by inciting her friend's fluster at her looming absence. Later that evening when the girls become abnormally skittish during a power flux they spontaneously serenade their friendship with silhouetted reaffirmation, but considering we've already been presented with multiple instances where the two have subtly exercised coercion and manipulation over the other, audiences are obviously not intended to interpret the pledge at face value.



When Aquamarine finally bursts onto the scene, she plays the part of role model to the girls and completely commandeers their activities. (It's worth a wish, after all.) The blonde routine is a riot but her presence is more an awesome force that radiates relative poise and physical maturity. Claire and Hailey sneak out to meet Aquamarine at nightfall but can't bail her out of the town swimming pool until morning where they stumble upon her in a supplies locker; before getting dressed, Aquamarine surveys her lower body swap - minus tail, plus legs - and exhibits noticeable delight at her newfound derrière, causing the girls to recoil at the perceived lewdness, yet Claire's following peek between clasped fingers betrays their conflicting stance concerning sexuality. For a spell the trio pursues Raymond, straining to construct elaborate scenarios to manipulate him to fall in love with Aquamarine, but the film is far too naturalistic to fall slave to its own premise. The snug, commonplace setting and casual acting is actually reminiscient of Italian Neorealism (kinda facetious and kinda sincere about that one!), and accordingly this section of the film remains dedicated to fleshing out relationships. Whereas the more reserved Claire tends to support Aquamarine from afar, Hailey connects with the mermaid instantaneously; the two find common ground in their headstrong personalities, culminating in a terrific scene where Aquamarine's confidence in love falters and Hailey curtails her attempt to flee not by reason or reassurance but rather self-degradation. As Hailey confesses her own confusion and insecurity, she is able to reconnect with Aquamarine through mutual vulnerability. Elizabeth Allen's use of extreme long distance here elegantly emphasizes the girls' emotional anchor as they are flanked by competing forces represented in the shot's physical terrain. So breathless are the grace and discerning of the film's exposition that it's easy to ignore the spirit of its numerous music montages - not exactly an approach considered quality in the making, but here it's a blast of fresh air to see the technique restored after a number of annoying suburban malaise films hijacked it a while back for the purpose of emo wankery and lazy drama, subverting its original purpose of turning things you don't particularly desire to watch people talk their way through into plain fun.

Aquamarine momentarily stumbles when it allows its inventive spins on familiar material to degenerate into well-trodden tenets of pop teen romance. The film's sensitive treatment of usually hackneyed territory is laudable; Claire's apprehension toward water due to her parents' drowning isn't played like an after-school special, but rather mentioned only when logically necessary, and later beautifully conveyed during a continuous dissolve between the mermaid arrving on the waves of the storm and Claire writhing in bed, denoting the unconscious leverage impressed upon her in order to viscerally demonstrate the emotional laceration of past events, effectively taking a clunker phobia subplot and transforming it - quite simply - into brilliant filmmaking. An innocuous tip the girls suggest to Aquamarine before her date with Raymond - "Be yourself ... minus the tail!" - momentarily registers as variation on Disney's brand of simplistic message-mongering but under scrutiny speaks to one aspect of the girls' conflict: the pressure to fit society's mold of love relationships by making individual concessions. Nevertheless, the film's vision is occasionally undermined by its refusal to provide equal treatment for other material. (The pool's impudent queen bee Cecilia provides a reasonable foil but after she gets her wings clipped the film just stops before the finish line. Her subplot should end with reconciliation rather than comeuppance.)

At a cursory glance designed as catnip for tweener femmes, Aquamarine's intimacy and depth ultimately suggest the marketing to be an appropriate aperture from film to target audience, and not a mechanism that excludes other age groups. Certainly there is nothing discriminative about the film's most magical scene, a moment of surprise calm punctuated by a swift zoom-out (indicative of a broader perspective, a shift in the girls' mindset that they're perhaps a step closer towards accepting having to make sacrifices when faced with unfairness and conflicting needs) and the dispersal of stormy stratocumulus into clear skies, a touching metaphor for an interpretation of love unclouded by romance and mysticism. Unlike an end of turn Waylay to the dome from a legendary Kyle Rose creation, Aquamarine is the kind of White Lightning at whose impact I will gladly flinch.