Fantasia Festival 2019: Harpoon (2019)

Harpoon (2019)

Director: Rob Grant

Cast: Munro Chambers, Christopher Gray, Emily Tyra, Brett Gelman

Harpoon is a 2019 Canadian dark comedy horror film about three friends who need to set aside their differences to survive being stranded when the yacht breaks down in the middle of the ocean.

Harpoon starts in a fairly dark comedy way introducing its film with a snarky narrator (Brett Gelman). Jonah (Munro Chambers) is a young man who recently lost his parents and needs to clean out their place when his best friend Richard (Christopher Gray) drops by and beats him up, suspecting that him and his girlfriend Sasha (Emily Tyra) had hooked up. After realizing it was all a mix-up which involved getting him a harpoon for his gift, he makes it up to them by going out to sea with his yacht. As issues arise between them, the yacht also breaks down, leaving them stranded in the middle of the waters with no help and not a lot of useful things to keep them alive except others company and more secrets to dig into.

Mostly set on the yacht and in the water, Harpoon is something of a one location film. It opens at Jonah’s home but quickly shifts over to the yacht and the waters. The film is shot in Belize and the overhead shots of the yacht constantly shows the isolation of the location. Harpoon utilizes its space, or lack thereof, on the yacht proficiently and its water around it as well to structure its scenes and consequences. As expected in one location, three people can be many especially when it is three best friends with grudges and suspicions trying to survive. The trajectory isn’t exactly unpredictable but the narrator, done by Brett Gelman adds a lot of substance to the story especially as they are aware to get the story paced tightly but the narrator will fill in the gaps of what the viewer needs to know to give the characters and situation more depth. At the same time, it helps to relieve some of the tension as he brings in the dark comedy of overlooking the situation. Its a nifty addition that adds quite a bit of fun to it all and Brett Gelman is a fantastic choice at getting this job done.

The film is reliant on the three characters being like onions, peeled layer after layer to keep having more to discover. Munro Chambers, Christopher Gray and Emily Tyra do a great job at delivering their roles as the situation get worse on the yacht and the secrets and tensions start building. All three of them have their own traits that balance out this friendship but because each of them have their own little secrets and their own motives, the whole situation ends up having a lot of depth. It turns into a game of trust and wondering when the next thing will be revealed and the tables turn again. The film is rather over the top deliberately in parts and it helps justify some of the overacting here. Fact is, while acting-wise all three do a great job, the characters are more in depth in terms of Jonah and Sasha perhaps because more of the past involves their mishaps and emotional hardships while Richard’s character in comparison is less complex and feels less fleshed out.

Harpoon has its obvious issues. There is some leaps of imagination here and there are gaps in the story, especially when pulling in the idea of survival based on an Edgar Allan Poe story. A lot of common sense probably needs to be tossed out the window to accept their actions but desperate measures, right? However, the tone right from the beginning with the narrator and the contrast with the tension in the reality of the situation makes for a lot of dark humor that lands really well. Its not for the squeamish though since it does have a decent amount of blood and violence. The title Harpoon is really probably just a metaphor or the start of things breaking down for their situation. Bottomline, Harpoon has its issues but its easily looked over due to a well-executed and sharp script. Whether its the one location, the characters and its blend of dark comedy and horror suspense elements, this movie is worth a look.

Alaska Cruise on the Norwegian Jewel: Day 1&2

I debated wrapping up the end of my trip with the second half of Seattle but I figured I might as well follow how my vacation went.

Day 3 of vacation was the morning blitz mode in Seattle that I wrote about HERE in the previous post.

Second half of that day was spending about an hour or so boarding the cruise ship.  During the first part of the line-up, I have to be honest that I freaked out just a little when I searched all my bags and I couldn’t find my passport.  Somehow I found it tucked somewhere or another.  It was just hidden.  Its been so many months that I can’t even remember where it finally popped up.  But that is generally how I am when I travel.  Good thing I pull out these documentation in advance. Imagine the stress of not finding it at the last minute and holding up the line, I can already feel the stress 😉

So, security checks and check-in for the cruise ship, getting our Norwegian Jewel card that is technically our access and payment for EVERYTHING for the 9 days on there.  I can tell you one thing, the perspective of life changes a little when money becomes this behind the scenes figure (kind of). I’ll talk about the entire cruise experience when I’ve finished with everything during a recap.  For now, lets get these rather uneventful Day 1 and 2 over with.

Day 1: Boarding ship and settling in!

Here’s our room, which is the first place we went after we boarded since we chose to carry our own luggages there. We didn’t bring a lot so it was light and easy.

Our room

There were no windows.  We were on the 8th floor.  It was a decent size and really tidy.  To be honest, I really just went back to rest here between activities or sleep at night or shower between workouts and meals.  I didn’t stay in there incredibly a lot so it didn’t really bother me much. It was really comfortable and the whole no windows thing made us kind of lose track of time in the mornings when we didn’t have to wake up for a tour because we couldn’t see when it was light out 😉 That’s vacation!

There was some Sailing Away activities in the afternoon as we inched closer to the 3pm time when we departed Seattle.

The Deck

View of Seattle from the Cruise Ship

When we sailed away, we walked around the ship to explore what there was and where it was all situated so we’d be able to get to wherever we wanted for whatever activities soon.  We peeked into the Workout room which I ended up spending a lot of time the next 9 days between trips and whatnot, starting the next day where I went two times or something since we were at sea. There were activities on the middle area with pools, sat down and enjoyed the sun a little, then found where the theatre for all the evening shows and we ended up finding the game room where we found a set of Mahjong complete with all the tiles.  Guess what? My mom and her friends wanted to kill some time doing that so we did until dinner time 🙂

Our first night at dinner was the restaurant we scouted out.  My mom and her friends had already been on various cruises before but its the first time they saw Asian cuisine as free dining on the cruise ship so of course, that was our first choice. Here’s what we had at this restaurant called Chin Chin.

Egg Drop and Corn Soup

Harvest Spring Rolls

Dumplings

Cashew Chicken

Fried Rice

Red Bean Triangles with Green Tea Ice Cream (not sure the exact name)

Panda Salad (I think)

Fruit Platter (my allergen free option)

The service was very nice.  The food was very westernized.  They called it Asian fusion, but its not.  Although, you will see that we did end up going back for lots of dumplings and possibly fried rice 😉

To wrap up the evening, we went for an evening walk on the deck where I discovered the Spinnaker Lounge which I will end up spending nights there checking out their game/theme nights and its kind of my way to have some alone time to relax and not be rushed from point A to point B. It was still relaxing but I do enjoy time to myself.

First Night on the Deck

There was also the Welcome Aboard Show at the Stardust Theatre to end off the night.

Day 2: At Sea

I was still experiencing jet lag on Day 2.  I’m telling you, as I get older, this jet lag business takes longer to settle especially those 3 hours time shifts.  So, guess what? I woke up at like 5 or 6 am or something and walked up to the deck and took some sunrise shots.

2nd day, sun rise!

Fresh air, ocean in front of the us and the dawn of a new day! That was an amazing and incredible feeling! 🙂

I had an early breakfast, headed to my first ever Zumba class then because the instructor was late and the class wasn’t long, I headed up to the gym to get in some jogging and rowing, before showering and heading down for lunch.  Sadly, it seems I didn’t take many pictures of the buffet portion of the trip, which I spent mostly for breakfast and lunch.  I can’t remember exactly what happened but I remember activities in the middle area with the pools slowly being opened and the hot tubs and whatnot.  There was the Mr. Alaska competition which was pretty entertaining, some music that followed.  We sat in the sun a little, booked our tours for the next few stops and just relaxed.

I’m telling you..I love relaxing but the first two days started getting so relaxing that I didn’t really know what to do so I walked around and explored by myself, especially after I went to do a second workout and lost my mom in the process on the ship.  I eventually found her right before dinner.  This night, we had already said to meet at one of the main dining halls called Azura.

Beef slider with lettuce salad (?)

Chicken with baked potatoes and vegetables

Salmon

Sorbet

Chocolate Volcano

Azura was very accommodating, especially for my food allergies.  The service was great and the food was delicious.  I can’t remember the name of the food at all but I have an idea of what it all is.

We ended the evening with a show at the Stardust Theatre called Back on the Road Show. I think it was a singing show.  I can’t remember anymore.  Then there was a game show called Battle of the Sexes which was really funny.

Its a calm two days and nothing much to really talk about so I put them together. We arrive at Ketchikan in Alaska for our first stop the next day! 🙂