Surfacing (1981) User Reviews

Overall Good Adaptation

[fisher1000 · 26 April 2003]

This adaptation wasn't perfect, but covered most of the major plot action. The book is much more in depth, and I'm not sure that I liked having this vision in my mind, but the movie alone was enjoyable. This is one of my favorite novels, and I reread it often. The scene where Kate finds the answer she seeks is disturbing, but relieving. I don't get the same sort of "revelation" that I get from the novel, but had I not read the novel first, I would have enjoyed this movie more. Overall...not bad. This movie is worth checking into, especially if you are a fan of the book.

This shouldn't be surfaced. It should be buried.

[mark.waltz · 1/10 · 14 July 2023]

If there's supposed to be a metaphor in this drama about four young people in the woods (one of them, Kathleen Beller, searching for her missing father in a desolate forest), I never want to meet it. Painfully dull and frequently perverted, it never seems to have anything logical going on, and when nature scenes bore me, I know I've made the wrong choice for picture watching.

Beller is with her supposed boyfriend (Joseph Bottoms) and two others (R. H. Thomson and Margaret Dragu), and there's a mystery of sorts involving some nature paintings apparently done by the natives, but the film never successfully dives into the significance of Beller's father and what he was after. A scene with Thomson photographing a nude Dragu while whirling a dead bird carcass around was just plain stupid. Totally a waste of time with little talent involved.

Just what was the point of this?

[Wizard-8 · 10 October 2011]

First of all, I feel I should mention that I have never read the Margaret Atwood novel this movie is based on. (And considering how boring most Canadian literature is, I never will.) I am sure, however, that the novel had more detail and explanation than this movie did. The movie starts off being a quest for a lost parent, but as soon as the protagonists make it to the woods, this quest is almost completely forgotten until the last ten minutes or so! The bulk of the movie has the protagonists canoing or wandering through the woods. There seems to be no point to all this, except maybe to pad out the running time. Maybe this stuff happened in the novel, though I'm sure the novel got into the heads of the characters and maybe therefore given the story a point. The movie has acceptable production values, but the general good look of the movie will not keep viewers awake.