The Shallows is an important film for a couple of reasons. First, it teaches us that nobody should ever go anywhere near the sea, not even once, even for a second, because everything that lives in it is a full-pelt bastard. But perhaps more significantly, it joins the hallowed group of movie one-handers: films where we only see one actor on screen for the overwhelming majority of the running time.
The key to a good one-hander is peril. The sole character we meet has to be in an absolute ton of trouble if they are going to sustain our attention for an hour and a half. Indeed, many of them hinge on the uncertainty of whether they will even survive the movie. This is certainly the case with The Shallows, a film about Blake Lively making small talk with a seagull while a shark tries to eat her face off. Here are the most notable movie one-handers, ranked in order of increasing peril.
127 Hours
We spend the vast majority of our time with James Franco, acting his chops off with his arm trapped under a rock. However, there is virtually no peril in this film. Will he live or die? The fact that the movie’s real-life subject wrote a book about the experience, then formed a substantial part of the film’s promotional campaign, might tip you off a little. Instead, this is just a film for people who want to watch James Franco hacking his arm off with a penknife. It’s a film for weirdos.
Peril rating: 3
Locke
This is a film about one man, in a car, discussing the intricacies of concrete distribution for 84 minutes. Oh, sure, other things happen in it as well. We get to see the lengths that this man will go to in order to prove that he is capable of decency, at the expense of everything he loves. But it is still mainly just a bloke in a car talking about concrete.
Peril rating: 4
The Man Who Sleeps
The most relentlessly French thing in the history of creation, The Man Who Sleeps is a 1974 black-and-white film about a dispassionate young man wandering the streets of Paris alone, while a dispassionate young woman says things such as: “You are such a negligible speck” in voiceover. He stares at a tree. He stares at a river. He reads a book. It’s a terrific film – and it contains perhaps the most meaningful closeup of a burning basin in all of cinema – but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is particularly perilous.
Peril rating: 4.5
Secret Honor
Made during Robert Altman’s wilderness years in the 1980s, Secret Honor is a fictionalised account of one night in Richard Nixon’s house post-resignation. Starring Philip Baker Hall as Nixon, the film takes the form of a long, angry monologue. And there is peril, too, thanks to the gun that lies on his desk throughout. You never know how the film will end, because you are never sure how much a work of fantasy this Nixon is. If you don’t mind spoilers, the final scene is available on YouTube. It is ridiculous.
Peril rating: 6
Wrecked
Adrien Brody wakes up in a car wreck, next to a dead body, in a ravine, with amnesia and a gun, covered in blood and surrounded by mountain lions. That is pretty much the entire film, as we watch Brody crawl back to civilisation and work out what happened to him. It’s not a good film in any sense – it is basically a longform version of Coldplay’s The Scientist video played backwards – but, hey, at least there are guns and car crashes and mountain lions. God knows how much more entertaining Locke would have been with mountain lions in it.
Peril rating: 7
Moon
It’s hard to know for certain whether this is a one-hander or not. Sam Rockwell plays the only substantial character we see on screen, but there are two of him. Can a film still be a one-hander if a man is playing clones? And can it also be a one-hander if Kevin Spacey plays the voice of a chatty computer? Since the emotional heft of the film falls solely to Rockwell, we can probably get away with calling it a one-hander - and a perilous one at that. After all, what possible stakes could be higher than learning that you are an expendable pawn to an unethical corporation –plus, you are on the moon by yourself?
Peril rating: 8
All Is Lost
Alone in the middle of the ocean, Robert Redford is on a boat that has been punctured by a loose shipping container. He races against time and nature in a desperate bid to save his own life. Immediately, this film confronts us with all the very worst kinds of peril: solitude, desperation, vast bodies of open water, thirst, imminent death and the prospect of being passed over at the Oscars in favour of Christian Bale’s crappy American Hustle wig. This is almost as bad as it gets.
Peril rating: 9
Buried
Being buried alive is a primal fear, one that is only topped by the prospect of being buried alive with Ryan Reynolds in the middle of his most annoying “I am a serious actor now” period. Kidnapped and thrown in a coffin in the middle of the desert with only a phone for company, the film follows Reynolds’s increasingly frantic attempts to escape. Slightly more than the sum of its parts, this film is terrifyingly claustrophobic.
Peril rating: 9.5
Cast Away
Oh Wilson, you twonk. If it wasn’t for Wilson – a mute, inert volleyball with a bloody handprint on it – this film would have no peril at all. It would simply be a film where Tom Hanks has a nice time on a lovely island with his happy volleyball chum. But when Wilson gets washed out to sea in a storm, and we see Hanks screaming hopelessly after him? Jesus Christ, that is peril of the very first order. Everyone go home and hug your volleyballs a little bit tighter tonight.
Peril rating: 10
