There are things about this movie that are misleading. First, you set this movie off the coast of Florida and a storm comes out of nowhere and disappears once this boat is capsized but there is (for whatever reason) no mention of the Bermuda Triangle. What’s up with that? Yes, I know the name of the boat is Triangle, but with the mention of Aeolus as the god of wind, you kind of could have set it everywhere, no? I’m just splitting hairs here, I guess.
Also, the minute that ocean liner pulled up, the hooks that normally hold up the lifeboats were DANGLING. In my mind, I went, “NO LIFEBOATS?! Ghostship.” I figured these folks were gonna be picked off one by one until our lead character – Jess, played by Melissa George – is The Final Girl. That is not the case, which leads us to our first plot twist.
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First plot twist: we’re in a fucking time loop movie. We won’t find that out until about 43 minutes in though. It’s a nice twist because once she kills the mystery murderer about two or three minutes prior, I was definitely beginning to feel like, “well now what? You’re the final girl and we’re barely a third of the way through.” After this reveal, we get three more twists that can be readily understood through the Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss framework.
Okay, so next plot twist is that apparently she’s an abusive parent. Oh my God, we went through all this and you’re a terrible mother?! Jesus fucking Christ. And then she kills the old version of herself and you’re like, “okay, so you’re just like magically not abusive now?” But then the first thing she does is tell her son he didn’t see what he thought he saw. Gaslight.
So then we see the over twenty seagulls and you’re like, “holy fuck, how many times have you gotten this far?!” But she’s like, “nah, I’m gonna pretend this never happened and obviously not tell anyone. Gatekeep.
And then! And then she kills her kid because she was yelling at him and drove into a truck. Because even though she killed an older version of herself, she did in fact NOT CHANGE. And so, when everything happens just as it happened before, she actually opts back into the timeloop, resetting everything into motion anew. Girlboss.
Okay so that said, there were a few things that I felt like were loose ends. And I can’t tell if I’m just not “getting” it or if they’re like actually unanswered questions. What prompts the time loop? Why is Jess the only one in it? I guess in the analogy with Aeolus and Sisyphus, she’s Sisyphus? I don’t know, I feel a little dumb on this, lol.
Anyway, a fun watch. 3.5 stars. Also the lead actress looks like a store brand Rachel McAdams.
