Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Good idea lost in the noise

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

As I indicated in the summary, this is a mild fantasy that is not too far-fetched. It is about "sea people"; people who look perfectly "normal", but who are more at home in the sea than on land.One of the principal characters is a normal person, a teen-age girl, who happens to meet up with two, a husband and wife, of these sea people while they are on land. She learns that they call themselves sea people. She befriends them and tries to learn all that she can about sea people.The husband is elderly and soon feels that his time on earth is almost finished. But he can live forever is he returns to the sea; permanently. That is what he (and other sea people) is going to do. When he so advises the teen-age girl, that makes for a very emotional farewell scene.Young Tegan Moss, someone I had never heard of, gives a very good performance as the teen-age girl. She is especially effective in the above-mentioned farewell scene. And Hume Cronyn, the sea person husband befriended by Tegan, gives his usual outstanding performance.I found this to be a very well done and enjoyable movie.

I stumbled on this movie in 2000 and Tegan Moss is great. This was her feature film debut at the tender young age of 14. I loved this movie so much I went all over my hometown of Edmonton,Alberta going south and west to find it. Before finally finding the movie at a 7-11 near the Clareview LRT Station in north Edmonton. Tegan shows big maturity for a person of 14, she was so beautiful, she was placed on my favorite actor/actresses list immediately. She is also a hockey fan like me but our teams differ (Tegan-Vancouver,me-Montreal Canadians). Get this movie it is excellent family entertainment. I rate this movie a 25 out of 10.

I just rented this movie and was enchanted. It's a very quiet story about a teen ager who meets a couple who are mer-people. They need her help and she befriends and helps them.There isn't a lot of high-tech action in this story, just beautiful scenery and good acting. This story presents a slightly different "take" on how mer-people would appear to and interact with humans. There is also a sub-plot about the girl learning to deal with loss when her father has to live in another town while he works.This isn't the best movie you're ever going to see, but it was a pleasant hour-and-a-half.My 14-year-old daughter who loves mermaids, was sorry to see this tape go back to Blockbuster, as was the rest of the family.

The plot is mildly interesting, but the film sadly lacks in genuine fantasy and imagination. Though it has a good cast, there is the typical cop-out of talking ABOUT mermaids and mermen but never having any -- just humans who are supposed to be the "real" merfolk.The Disney Channel film THE THIRTEENTH YEAR did a much better job of handling the same subject matter and did not skim on costuming and special FX. This film, on the other hand, comes across as the low-budget version of the same story. Too bad. It could have been so much better.