Splash (1984)

What happens when you get so desperate and hit up M-Date.

After having a brief bout with death when he was just a little kid, Allen (Tom Hanks) has always been a little afraid of life. Mostly though, he’s afraid of the water, in that he almost drowned but thankfully, and miraculously, was saved by a mermaid (Daryl Hannah). Yes, an actual mermaid. While Allen’s friends and family don’t believe him, it’s a truth that he believes in so much, that nearly 20 years later, he meets the mermaid, who is all grown-up and walking on land and in need of some American culture. Allen is more than able to help her out with it all and better yet, maybe even fall in love with her, too. While it’s something that Allen has a problem with, he feels as if he can get past it for Madison’s sake. However, poor Allen himself has no clue that Madison is in fact a mermaid. Obviously, this wouldn’t bode well for any human being, let alone a guy like Allen, who always seems to pick an excuse for not tying the knot and settling down, even when he’s got the greatest girl by his side.

Get it? She’s hot!

Actual, good romantic-comedies are a dime-a-dozen nowadays that whenever an actual good one does come around, it’s a nice little surprise. It doesn’t mean that the movie is perfect, doesn’t have flaws, and surely doesn’t have all the same predictable issues that usual rom-coms have, because they do – it just means that they’re better than the herd and because of that, are worthy of being watched. That’s why a movie like Splash, as predicatble, conventional, and as imperfect as it may be, it’s still actually good and a whole lot better than what else kind of rom-com schluck that one could be watching.

Does that make it the greatest thing since sliced-bread? Of course not. But hey, it’s a start.

One of the main reasons for Splash working as well as it does is because the script doesn’t take itself all too seriously. It knows that it’s dealing with a fantasy and because of that, it doesn’t try to break any new ground, deliving some hard, honest thoughts and opinions about love, heartbreak, and all of the sadness, as well as happiness that can come with it all – it’s more about some d-bag of a guy, growing up, learning some values, and giving life itself a chance and not just turning his tail whenever tension or something serious may be standing in his way. While having three writers (Babaloo Mandel, Lowell Ganz, Bruce Jay Friedman) for a rom-com about a dude and a mermaid, may seem a bit excessive, it still works, because whatever missteps they make in the process, director Ron Howard is there to pick up the pieces and ensure that whatever mistakes are made, he’ll clean up the mess.

And clean up is what he does. Howard’s a good director – no doubt about that. But what he does well here is that he does keep the energy going along, even when it seems like a worser movie would pay attention to the stupid, silly details of the story. It’s literally a fish-out-of-water story, and while we do get a few jokes using that as a backbone, the movie doesn’t wholly rely on it; it instead focuses on the aspect of the real world and how society would look at someone/something as Madison, and judge her instantly. The movie doesn’t try to say anything about the human-condition, but it comes pretty close and it works.

Every man needs a best friend like John Candy.

Oh, and yeah, the movie’s funny, too.

The script is good for sure, but it’s honestly the performances that really make it work, what with a solid ensemble to help this material, even when it goes through some choppy areas. Splash is obviously well-known for being the movie that made Tom Hanks into a bonafide star and regardless of all that, it’s still a great performance from Hanks. He’s the typical male protagonist in a rom-com that’s all about him, his life, and his ways, but Hanks has fun with it; he enjoys making this guy look like a bit of an a-hole, as well as an endearing dude who may have actually found the love of his life for once and is finally ready to settle down. It could have been a throwaway role for anyone, but Hanks is better than that.

Daryl Hannah is pretty good, too, as Madison, but a good part of her role does have to deal with, unfortunately, a lot of her looking long, tall, blonde and, yes, naked. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with that, but there are a few good times during the movie where it made me wonder what the joke was, only to then realize that it was about Hannah’s butt or boobs. Thankfully, John Candy and Eugene Levy show up, showing off their brand for oddball humor, even in something that may seem so straight and ordinary as this mainstream rom-com. Candy definitely gets the bigger role of the two, playing Allen’s best friend, who gets to be goofy, but also sort of the heart and soul to the story. It shows us just what kind of great things Candy could do with the form of comedy, even if he never got to fully capitalize on all of it.

Or, at least, not nearly as much as everyone else here got to in the future and after Splash.

Consensus: Even if it is predictable and conventional to a fault, Splash still works because it’s funny, romantic, well-acted, and yes, even a little sweet.

7.5 / 10

Woah. Tom.

Photos Courtesy of: 30 Years On