Under Paris
 | You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
| Under Paris | |
|---|---|
| French | Sous la Seine |
| Directed by | Xavier Gens |
| Written by |
|
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Nicolas Massart |
Production company | |
Release date |
|
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Budget | €19.6 million |
Under Paris (French: Sous la Seine) is a 2024 French action-horror film directed by Xavier Gens, who co-wrote it with Yannick Dahan, Maud Heywang, and Yaël Langmann. It stars Bérénice Bejo as a grieving marine biologist who is forced to face her tragic past in order to save Paris from a bloodbath when a giant shark appears in the Seine.
Produced on a budget of €19.6 million,[1] the film was released by Netflix on 3 June 2024 and initially received mixed-to-positive reviews, with some critics comparing it to Jaws (1975) and other films of the shark movie genre. Subsequent reviews have been less favorable.[2][3]
Plot[edit]
Near the Great Pacific garbage patch, marine researcher Sophia Assalas and her team search for Lilith, a tagged shortfin mako shark. Her husband Chris leads a dive team of Sam, Juan and Tom, leaving Sophia and Jade onboard. The team first observe an unusal sight of makos hunting in a pack, before they locate Lilith, who has grown much larger since she was last sighted. With the shark appearing non-aggressive, Chris attempts to take a blood sample from Lilith, but the shark suddenly snaps and kills him, Sam, Juan and Tom. Leaving the safety of the boat, Sophia goes after Lilith, but becomes entangled in a net and dragged far beneath the surface as the shark escapes into the depths. She manages to free herself, but not before suffering injuries due to the severe change in pressure.
Three years later, Sophia works at an aquarium in Paris. Mika, an environmentalist, informs Sophia that Lilith's tracking beacon is still active and that she has travelled from the Pacific and up the River Seine and is seemingly trapped in the city. After a man is found dead with wounds from shark bites, police diver Adil recruits Sophia to help find and kill the shark, but Mika and her girlfriend Ben turn off the beacon before they can do so in the hope that they can rescue her later. Sophia and Adil petition the Mayor of Paris to postpone the upcoming triathlon. The mayor refuses, emphasizing the event's importance for focusing global attention on Paris during the run-up to the Olympic Games which billions of euros have already been spent on. Mika reveals Lilith's existence to the public, and leads a group of supporters into the city's catacombs, where the city's wastewater reservoirs are, to find her. Ben tells Sophia of Mika's plan, and she and Adil's team head down into the catacombs to find them after reactivating Lilith's beacon.
Mika activates a pulse to lure Lilith to where her group have convened, and swims out to the middle of the reservoir. Adil's team arrives just as Lilith appears with a juvenile shark, Lilith's offspring. Mika refuses to hear warnings to get out of the water, and after she pets the juvenile shark, Lilith attacks and kills her, causing a mass panic that leads to many injuries and twelve deaths, including that of Ben and of Leopold, a police officer on Adil's team. In the aftermath Sophia and Adil find the juvenile shark dead, and after examining it they discover that it has mutated to adapt to fresh water and that it is pregnant through parthenogenesis, and that if not caught Lilith may give birth to more mutated offspring. The Mayor, deflecting blame from herself, orders them to kill the shark, and still refuses to cancel the triathlon to be held in the river the following day. She takes part in a TV interview downplaying the danger the sharks present.
Sophia and Adil devise a plan to lure Lilith out of the catacombs and blow her up with the help of explosives experts Poiccard and Berruti. As the mayor declares the triathalon open, and swimmers take to the water, Adil's team Caro, Adama, Angèle and Markus begin to execute the plan. Underwater, Sophia and Adil encounter a large school of juvenile sharks as they set up their trap. The sharks kill Poiccard, Berruti and Adama before Adil sets the explosives off, destroying the school of juvenile and leaving the gigantic Lilith as the only survivor. She capsizes the police boat, killing Caro and Markus, and she heads towards the triathlon. The mayor and the spectators look on in horror as several swimmers are attacked and killed. The military open fire on Lilith, despite warnings from Adil that there are live shells on the riverbed. The disturbance in the water from their gunfire and Lilith's movements causes unexploded ordnance at the bottom of the river to shift and detonate. The resulting chain reaction of explosions destroys several bridges and creates a tsunami that floods the center of Paris. Sophia and Adil are left stranded on the roof of a building in the middle of the flood, surrounded by Lilith and the juvenile sharks that have survived the explosions.
Cast[edit]
- Bérénice Bejo as Sophia
- Nassim Lyes as Adil
- Léa Léviant as Mika
- Sandra Parfait as Caro
- Aksel Ustun as Nils
- Aurélia Petit as Angèle
- Marvin Dubart as Markus
- Daouda Keita as Leopold
- Ibrahima Ba as Adama
- Anne Marivin as the Mayor of Paris
- Stéphane Jacquot as Poiccard
- Jean-Marc Bellu as Berruti
- Nagisa Morimoto as Ben
- Yannick Choirat as Chris
- Iñaki Lartigue as Juan
- Victor Pontecorvo as Sam
- Thomas Espinera as Tom
- Anaïs Parello as Jade
- Iván González as André
- Patrick Ligardes as the Prefect of Paris
- Maud Forget as a sports journalist
- Jonas Dinal as Adewale
- Hugo Trophardy as Victor
- Yves Calvi as himself
- Ricky Tribord as the Marine officer
- Monsieur Poulpe as a triathlon swimmer
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 64% based on 22 reviews, with an average rating of 6.20/10.[4] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 55 out of 100, based on four critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
References[edit]
- ^ Boisclair, Marc (22 April 2024). "« Sous la Seine » : Netflix accusé de plagiat et une demande pour l'annulation de la sortie du film de requins de Xavier Gens" ["Under Paris": Netflix accused of plagiarism and a request for the cancellation of the release of the shark film by Xavier Gens]. Horreur Québec (in French).
- ^ "Under Paris: Why a French film about a killer shark in the Seine is the popcorn movie of the summer so far". BBC News.
- ^ "Under Paris: Netflix has delivered one of the best shark movies ever made". The Guardian.
- ^ "Under Paris". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 10 June 2024.
External links[edit]
- Under Paris at IMDb
 | This article related to French film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |