Blue Crush, the movie, Panthers of the Surf

 

I had already written my column this week, until I saw a movie about Surfer Chicks in Hawaii, today.  Besides being totally blown away by the cinematography, I kept seeing Panther Girls, and I wanted to get this column in, while people had a chance to see this flick.  This column may blow the storyline of the movie for my readers, but don't worry, see it anyway.  The movie is about the sea and the surf, the plot is very thin and not the reason you want to see this film.

 

Blue Crush is about chicks that want to surf the big waves, which has always been considered a man's world.  Chicks lack the strength to ride the big waves, like the Hawaiian Pipeline.  They don't belong out in the big waves, and they certainly are no match for the best male surfers.  But for the first time, there is a professional competition for women on the pipeline.  A Hawaii local girl named Ann Marie wants to try it.  She was a Junior Champion, who tried to ride the big waves with the boys, cracked her head on a rock, and nearly died.  Three years later, she is training for the competition.

 

Ann Marie has 3 close friends, and they actually live in a hut.  They barely make enough money, working as hotel maids, to pay the rent.  What they really care about is surfing.  Up at dawn to ride the waves before work, late to work all the time and barely holding on to their jobs, staying up all night when the surf is good, and getting up the next day to do it again.

 

Some of the men in their lives are supportive, you might call them Panther Lovers.  In fact some of the supportive men are ex-lovers of the Panther/Surfer girls.  Before the competition, a small group of the local surfers, clear out the surf area so Ann Marie can practice on some big waves.  But some of the men are hostile.  At one point, one of them deliberately rams her on a wave, breaking her surfboard.

 

Ann Marie gets fed up with some guests, who left their room a pig sty, and gives a 300 lb football player a public lesson in how to dispose of a condom, embarrassing him.  He could have flipped out and beat her senseless, but he admires her pluck and knows he was wrong, and they become friends.  The football players even take surfing lessons from the surf chicks, not the least bit threatened that the chicks know how to surf better than they do.

 

Ann Marie also becomes *coughs* friends with the Quarterback of the NFL team that is vacationing there.  For a time she kinda forgets about the competition.  One of her chums is supportive of her dalliance, but another one lets her have it with both barrels for betraying herself for love.  Only when she is in a bathroom stall and overhears the wives of the other players making fun of her, does she realize that she will never fit in with the other FW, no matter what happens between her and the Quarterback.  She needs to be true to her dream.

 

In the first round of the competition, Ann Marie gets buried by a big wave, and almost knocked out of the competition.  While she is lying wounded, her friends tell her that she has done enough, she doesn't need to go out for the second round.  But she does.  Her opponent in the second round is a real veteran, fearless and hard-assed, who takes every wave and kicks Ann Marie's ass.  Ann Marie's fear has got the best of her, and she is just floating in the surf, passing on every wave.  The veteran comes out and encourages her to go for broke, and Ann Marie gets buried again.  But she shakes off a ride to shore on a skidoo and heads out to try and catch one more wave, before her time expires.

 

She nails it, scoring a perfect 10.  Ann Marie is still eliminated, but she is victorious.  See, it is not about winning, but about trying.  I was particularly impressed at the supportive role played by the fearless veteran surfer.  She could have been jealous, gloating or insulting.  She could have just rode her own waves and blown Ann Marie off.  But somehow, chicks hang together in a different way than men do, at least in movies.  And somehow, Ann Marie's perfect ride is a victory for her, for the tough veteran, the rest of her tribe, and all the local surfers.  Her dream is realized, without beating anybody.  She screwed up time and time again, but she finds one moment of transcendence. 

 

Does she get the guy in the end?  The movie doesn't tell us, and who fucking cares anyway?  The last shot of the film, shows 3 young girls, bellies on their boards, heading out into the surf.