‘Under Paris’ Finally Puts Netflix in the Shark Movie Business

Beach season is upon us, and with it comes the indoor-kid corollary of shark movie season. Not every major shark movie has showed its fin during warm-weather months, but it’s easy to see why most of them are summer releases: Jaws basically invented the summer blockbuster back in 1975, not least because its beachy setting felt like summer in a way that few subsequent smash hits have ever managed. There’s never been another shark movie that hit so big, but that hasn���t stopped smaller movies from biting off their own little piece of summer-movie real estate, and a canon of shark pictures has gradually built up years of summer movie seasons. Deep Blue Sea celebrates its 25th anniversary this July; scrappier, smaller-scale fare like The Shallows and 47 Meters Down were June releases; the Meg movies have staked out August release dates along side 47 Meters Down: Uncaged. And this year, befitting the times, the summer shark movie is on Netflix.

Under Paris, a French-language entry in the shark sweepstakes, attempts to relocate the shark movie out of the ocean, in the process reclaiming an irrational childhood fear, a debunked social-media post, and SyFy trope all at once: Sharks in unexpected places! It’s irresistible, especially because it’s something most entries in the small shark-movie pantheon have never attempted. (Sharknado doesn’t count.) Deep Blue Sea flirts with it a little by having sharks invade an underwater facility, but the understanding is that the humans are essentially in their territory. Under Paris makes a sensationalist but, as such, appealing argument that if we keep messing up the shark’s territory, they’ll eventually adapt to ours. (Similarly, this is the shark movie attempting to adapt to a new Netflix habitat.)

In this case, it means turning up in the Seine in Paris, and nesting in the catacombs under the city. Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) plays a shark researcher haunted by the death of her team (including her husband) and convinced that the shark who took them down has actually shown up in Paris. Perhaps fearing a Jaws: The Revenge situation, she attempts to warn city officials – who, in the grand tradition of shark-movie mayors, don’t see any reason to cancel a high-profile upcoming triathlon (which includes a swim through the cleaned-up Seine!) that will serve as a warm-up for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.

Like this year’s Night Swim, Under Paris tries to find a semi-practical way to prey upon the fear that so many kids get after watching Jaws: that there’s something there under the water, even when “the water” means a pool or a city-traversing river, rather than the deeper, more authentically dangerous ocean. In doing so, the movie runs up against the classic shark-movie conundrum: We watch these movies to glimpse sharks doing big, scary, shark-y stuff, but our eyes also want to believe what we’re seeing – not because we want gigantic evolving sharks to be real, but because it more closely resembles looking our fears in the (beady, terrifying) eyes.

On one hand, no one has ever played hide-the-shark better than the original Jaws – and that was out of necessity as much as a young Steven Spielberg’s filmmaking prowess. As with the dinosaurs past the first Jurassic Park, it’s no longer as effective to hold them back; we know what they look like. Still, The Shallows does an admirable job balancing out shark effects and the implication of a shark, in part by focusing so intently on Blake Lively’s performance (a solo act for almost the entire film). Her survival dilemma places the shark at front of mind even when it’s not on screen. On the other side, Deep Blue Sea uses digital effects to give the audience lots of bloody shark action, and it works; it’s not as suspenseful or believable as Jaws, but it’s a breakneck monster movie.

Under Paris, unfortunately, falls in between the two strategies and never recovers. For what appear to be budgetary reasons, it must keep sharks off screen for much of its runtime, but director Xavier Gens doesn’t ratchet up the suspense of the lurking animals; understandably so, given that, on the balance, it’s pretty easy to avoid going into the Seine. (Technically the same may be true for the ocean, but at least there’s a lot of ocean out there, and a prevailing notion that it’s fun to swim in it. The Seine does not look like a day at the beach.) There are some interesting logistical challenges when the characters decide to address the shark problem, but it’s not exactly a slow burn. This is probably because Gens also likes his mayhem (the title of his previous film was literally Mayhem!), and hell, if you’re making a movie about sharks invading Paris via flooded catacombs, of course you want at least one decent feeding frenzy. It’s at this point that the movie runs into the aforementioned budgetary limitations, and unleashes ugly CG sharks that are a step or three above a SyFy original, but never enough to pass muster on a big screen.

Netflix movies often occupy a nebulous between-worlds zone, but Under Paris makes it especially easy to pinpoint how the presence of Bejo makes the movie seem like a possible theatrical release for a little while before the sharks chase the whole project into the shallower waters of TV movie. There’s no physicality to these beasts; some of their big marquee moves, like ramming a boat from below or catching a human in their jaws, look sloppy, even confusing, as if the action never progressed beyond rough animatic stage. (Although most animatics are probably clearer about cause and effect.) Like those self-conscious SyFy movies, it turns sharks into a cutesy gimmick, completely missing their sense of mystery and power, then tries to circle back to raw, elemental scariness again.

One of the scariest elements of sharks – even if it’s not particularly true to their actual nature – is how they’re portrayed as a kind of perfect killing machine, not unlike the xenomorph in Alien. Under Paris does eventually lean into that idea with a plot turn that then unexpectedly and delightfully bends toward Rise of the Planet of the Apes – one that these filmmakers don’t seem equipped to follow through on. The Apes movies, past and present, treat its animals with respect and awe, not just blind fear; the Alien movies can still inspire a terror-struck version of awe. The better shark thrillers invite us to find some of that awesome terror in our own planet, in the present day. Much of Under Paris treats sharks more like a meme.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.