Dive is a two-part film that centres around the life of a talented fifteen year old diver named Lindsey (Aisling Loftus) whose ambition is to join the British Olympic team in 2012. One day, she returns from practice to find that her father is leaving and her mother is in the house with her new boyfriend. Upset by this turn of events, she begins to go off the rails, meeting up with friends and drinking in the park. It's then that she meets a sixteen year old boy named Robert (Jack O'Connell). They quickly become friends and end up having unprotected sex, which results in Lindsey becoming pregnant, putting her Olympic ambitions under threat.
The main problem with Dive is that neither the plot nor the characters carry even the slightest whiff of authenticity. In fact, the characterisation in Dive is so bad that it ought to be held up as an example to teach aspiring directors and screenwriters of how not to do it. For starters, it doesn't help that Lindsey herself is an unlikeable character; passive, dull and despondent, who seems to spend most of her time staring into space. There doesn't seem to be any convincing reason for her to be this way. We don't see her having any problems at school and neither her parents, nor her mother's boyfriend are shown to be in any way abusive, violent or negligent. If anything, they're shown to be caring and supportive. Not that it would matter, as Lindsey shows little affection towards either of her parents anyway, which makes the whole "off the rails" scenario look rather implausible. When Lindsey becomes pregnant and she is unsure of whether to keep the baby or not, no reason is given to make us believe that she would risk her ambitions in order to pursue family life; at no point do we ever see a religious, maternal or nurturing side to her character. Presumably, the writers didn't think it important to include any of this. And neither was any real attempt made to make Lindsey's relationship with Robert look convincing; they go from meeting to sex in less than five minutes of screen time, with no chemistry to speak of. The writers obviously didn't want to waste time establishing their relationship in an interesting, meaningful way that might actually endear us to either of these characters.
After a while, it becomes clear that the whole situation is ridiculous and that the characters are being made to behave in an implausible manner just to create drama and to drive the plot forward (In an interview, Loftus tried to handwave this by explaining that Lindsey's decisions were "instinctive," just in case anyone mistook her character for a thinking human being.) So it should come as no surprise that after listening to the actors describing their characters that they rarely – if ever – resemble anything seen on screen. Nowhere do we see any evidence of Lindsey being "brave," "astute" or possessing tremendous foresight, for instance. Likewise, nowhere do we see Robert's alleged charisma (not unless "Are you a princess?" and " You're gorgeous," are what pass for charisma nowadays.) But then again, the actors can absolve themselves of responsibility, as the blame clearly lies on the shoulders of the writers. If we populated Dive with characters that acted true to form, Lindsey would probably never have got pregnant in the first place and there wouldn't be a story. The result of all this is a film that only works providing you don't think about it, and even then there are other problems, such the musical score, which is droning and intrusive in equal measure. The dialogue is sparse and unremarkable. And then there's the symbolism, which is sometimes delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
But what makes it so much worse is the way that the people involved in the production kept going on about how "natural," "honest" and "realistic" it all was (the frequency of these words is rather suspicious). If challenged to point out evidence in support of this, I have no doubt they'd struggle to do so.
