Splash (2004, DVD)

A young boy falls into the sea and has an encounter with a mermaid. This encounter goes with him all of the days of his life and affects him as the only time where he felt peace within himself. This sets ups a cute and precious love story that would be really one for the "books", except that the story itself becomes filled with sexual references in valuation with love instead of love on its own merits.

And all of this story is known as the movie titled Splash one that I watch periodically but still feel has major faults.

Continuation of the Story and Comments

As we move ahead numerous years in the future, we see that Allen Bauer (Tom Hanks) still does not feel fulfilled with life. He doesn't have good relationships with women although he has sex with them, because he just truly can not say that he "loves" them. All of this changes though as he meets a woman who he doesn't realize is his childhood dream come true, Madison (Darry Hannah), the mermaid of his childhood now come to be with him for seven days out of the sea.

Upon meeting Madison, who doesn't have a name at this time nor speaks English, we see that the first thing that she wants to do "with" Allen is make love with him. To me this really is sickening and shows a bad example of relationships.

How can sex be the primary part of a permanent loving relationship without anything else? But yet, this story bases itself on that first -- not communication, not understanding, but how much sex to be poured into a movie (implied through language and foreplay kissing) than anything else.

That's really what turns me OFF to Splash to be honest with you.

However, after this initial flury of continuous sex, we finally get to the point where we see the development of a relationship between Allen and Madison. Madison has kept her mermaid secret from Allen all of this time so he doesn't understand how she acts in certain ways to things, and Madison is forever on her guard to keep her secret. This puts a strain on their relationship but it makes for some very humourous scenes too as Madison acts really contrary to very normal and human every day circumstances.

As in most movies, there is a villain of sorts with Walter Kornbluth (Eugene Levy), a scientist trying to prove the existance of mermaids to get a grant of sorts or favor with a senior collegue. He sees Madison in the sea and then upon finding her on land tries his best to pour water on her so that she will become a mermaid on land to prove his point.

As the story goes, we see a climax of all of these situations. Allen doesn't understand why Madison is so hesitant to marry him, Madison is torn between her love for the sea and her love for Allen, and Korbluth is just around the corner trying to destroy everything for his own gain.

So what will the conclusion be? This is something you will have to see for yourself.

Drawbacks

As I mentioned the most obvious drawback to Splash is that it tries to make the cute love story of the boy and girl in the sea into a sex orgy as they encounter each other again. This is really distasteful to me and I am sure I am not the only one that thinks this. It would have been better really if they could have at least have developed a relationship of communication or something before the sexual encounters or something.

Another drawback is that the story itself lacks a great deal of depth. The story only happens within a few days period, but I feel that we could have learned more about Madison's personality in relationship to her feelings within the film. That would have made things a bit better in my opinion to understand the tearing that she has within herself between choosing Allen and the sea. Other scenes are chopped short as well and this leaves a lack of understanding.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I feel that Splash could have been a more well rounded love story with an innocent factor instead of being created as a love/sex fest between Allen and Madison instead. That innocent factor really is shattered when we discover that they have had continous sex the first time they met and really does not give a persuasive scenario to believe that the innocence of their former childhood encounter still remains.

If the film would have focused more on that at first instead of the sexual implications I believe that I could have found the love story more believable considering the Allen Bauer's background of failed sexual/love relationships. As it stands, I wonder really until the end of the film whether the relationship between he and Madison will survive because basing a relationship just on sexual compatibility does not insure that a relationship will survive.

Therefore, it is my suggestion that if you don't have anything to "watch" that you may perhaps want to watch Splash. But personally, I have more movies in my library to watch that I feel have that combination of innocent love and attraction and prefer to watch those instead. (Father Goose, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Yours, Mine, and Ours.)