An eminent Australian marine biologist is called back home when her mother, a lifetime environmental activist, has a stroke. The movie then tells its story through flashbacks to times decades ago when together they fought to save their bay from greedy developers. The bay was also home to a magnificent blue grouper the young diver had befriended. 

Let’s cut to the chase. The underwater scenes are beautifully filmed, but when it comes up for air it reaches a level of sappy melodrama that would make Nicholas Sparks envious. 

Movie pioneer Samuel Goldwyn once famously said, “If you want to send a message, call Western Union,” implying, if I’m not mistaken, that moviegoers would rather be entertained than edified. So I’m not knocking the movie’s environmental theme, just its amateur execution. The vastly overqualified Australian cast includes Mia Wasikowska, Radha Mitchell, Eric Bana and Ariel Donoghue.

The film has garnered its share of award nominations, all Australian, and has been pretty much ignored by the rest of the world. You should do the same. (102 min)

Check it out on theatres here.