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Surfers Bethany Hamilton (AnnaSophia Robb) and her best friend, Alana Blanchard (Lorraine Nicholson), star in Soul Suffer along with American Idol winner Carrie Underwood’
Soul Surfer: Surfer Girl Bio-Pic, Safely Hangs 5

By Sandra Olmsted
(Posted April 12, 2011)
The sports film is a common enough genre that viewers expect a sports hero who is injured and must make a come back.  Soul Surfer offers few surprises in terms of whether the injured champion will play again since it is based a true story, but the film does have the exoticness of surfing as a lifestyle and a competitive sport. These are the true-life pathos of Bethany Hamilton, the 13-year-old surfer who lost her arm in a shark attack in 2003, and the novelty of the sports hero being female.  Director Sean McNamara’s film, however, lacks a clear focus about what to make the main theme of the film, and this lack of focus is probably the result of having seven screenwriters, three authors of the original book, and 20 some producers.
Through the magic of exciting and compelling cinematography by director of photography John R. Leonetti, the viewer can duckdrive beneath the waves, thrill to catching a wave, and feel the spiritual closeness with the ocean inside the curl.  For those who dream of surfing but have lives their lives landlocked, the surfing action is reason enough to see the film.  The Hawaii inspired original music by Marco Beltrami sometimes adds to the exotic atmosphere but is often too subtle to be effective.  The surf competitions are filmed in such a way that landlubbers will understand how the heats work without lengthy exposition nor overwhelming details and surfer slang.  In fact, surfing as an organized sport is much like any other sport.
The community is portrayed as small and close-knit, especially in the Thanksgiving scene barely a month after Bethany loses her arm.  An interesting scene that needed to be played for more was the hunt for and capture of the tiger shark by the oceanside community, much as a land-based man-eater would be hunted for once it had tasted human flesh.  The film portrays the surfing community in a very good light although the churchgoing, wave-riding Hamilton family may come off as too good to be true because the film works harder to be a truthful biopic than an exciting film.
When the film opens, Bethany Hamilton (AnnaSophia Robb) and her best friend, Alana Blanchard (Lorraine Nicholson), are just two vivacious girls, growing up in Hawaii, learning to surf as toddlers, eventually sharing dreams of surfing competitively, and training hard to win.  Home schooled so that they can take advantage of prime surfing time during the day, Bethany and Alana training every day until one morning, out of the blue ocean, a 14-foot tiger shark bites off Bethany’s arm.
Bethany is rushed to the hospital where her father is having surgery on his knee, and his surgery is canceled at the last minute so she can have the operating room, which doesn’t play realistically, but is apparently true.  It is the lack of strong emphasis on the small miracles, such as her father surgery being delayed because the anesthesia didn’t kick in right away, that makes that coincidences like this one seem false in the film.  A film that truly focused on the issues of what was “God’s plan” for Bethany’s life that she should lose her arm would have spend a little more time emphasizing the miracles, large and small, that saved her.
Having lived despite losing her arm and 60 % of her blood, the 13- year-old Bethany desires to get back to what she “was born to do” — surf.  With the help and support of her family, who have always supported her surfing wholeheartedly, Bethany gets back on her board and even enters a competition.  Unfortunately, she doesn’t do well in the competition and abandons her dream of surfing professionally or ever even surfing again.
This plot twist might play as giving up too easily if the viewer forgets that Bethany is only thirteen when she loses her arm and must face some very big obstacles.
Under the supervision of youth pastor Sarah Hill (Carrie Underwood), Bethany goes on a mission trip to Thailand after the 2004 tsunami and realizes she didn’t lose every thing when she is faced with a one women who lost her whole family.  Then Bethany sees numerous surfboards on the beach and no one surfing, and she gets back in the water on a borrowed board because she doesn’t want all these other people to give up surfing.  Bethany arrives home to piles of fan mail from others facing similar adversity, and she is inspired to try again.
To really get back into shape to surf competitively, she must train very hard, and the montage showing her and her father working together is inspiring.  It is nice to see a film with a girl hero.  It even nicer to see that her and her father and couch, Tom Hamilton (Dennis Quaid), have such a great relationship.  Bethany’s mother, Cheri Hamilton (Helen Hunt), is also supportive; however, Hunt’s most frequently line is “You don’t have to do this,” which is a waste of the actress’s talent. The acting, however, is natural and complements the the natural beauty of the setting.  The diminutive Robb is perfectly cast as Bethany and gives her character physical and emotional reality to a girl growing from barely thirteen to sixteen plus.
The simplistic plot and theme development make the story of Bethany’s triumph over adversity straight forward enough to entertain children—provided they aren’t frightened by the tension created by the POV shots of the shark seeming to lie in wait for Bethany for days before the attack.   the intensity of the shark attack, or the race to save Bethany’s life.
Those who see the film will not be wholly unsatisfied nor totally wowed.  A TriStar Pictures release, Soul Surfer is rated PG for an intense accident sequence and some thematic material; it runs 110 minutes.

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