A Realistic Take On Awkwardness Very Much Serves As A Positive Facet Of Eagle vs. Shark

There's not much in the life of Lily (Loren Horsley) that can be called extraordinary. She lives out her comfortable existence with her cartoonist brother, works at a fast food burger joint and enjoys watching documentaries about her favorite animal, sharks. But there is a customer that repeatedly comes into her place of work that does brighten her day and that customer is a dude named Jarrod (Jemaine Clement). Jarrod is basically your quintessential nerd's nerd and one whose oblivious that Lily has a crush on him. Lily does have a chance to build upon her infatuation with Jarrod when she gets invited to a party he's hosting wherein guests have to dress up as their favorite animal.


Showing up to Jarrod's shindig dressed as a shark, Lily garners Jarrod's attention via her skills at a Mortal Kombat-like video game and after spending the night together, the two become an item, much to Lily's happiness. These two becoming a romantic duo means Lily gets embroiled in Jarrod's long-gestating scheme to return to his hometown, where Jarrod's extended family still reside, and get revenge on a former schoolyard bully. Lily goes along with this plan but some strife emerges between the two once Jarrod becomes too embroiled in this hair-brained plan of his which results in him exhibiting all too frequent selfish tendencies.

Serving as Taika Waititi's debut project as a feature film writer/director, Eagle vs. Shark struck me as frequently feeling like a typical romantic-comedy filtered through Waititi's unique perspective that places a greater emphasis on juxtaposing realistic depictions of awkwardness against the heightened way romantic-comedies typically portray the concept of love. This is most prevalent in the first act, but moments like a raggedy-looking Jarrod walking up to Lily basked in angelic lighting or Lily chucking a personal object into the ocean as a visual depiction of internal anger only for that airborne personal object to accidentally kill a seagull very much feel like Waititi letting the air out of recurring parts of romantic-comedy by letting the imperfections of reality intrude on the proceedings.

Of course, there's more than lampooning romantic-comedies going on here as, like Waititi's two most recent comedies What We Do In The Shadows and Hunt For The Wilderpeople, Eagle vs. Shark is all about lending humanity to societies oddballs while depicting these characters more unorthodox traits in a realistic fashion. The way lead actor Loren Horsley and Jemaine Clement depict their characters specific brand of awkwardness in a manner that truly does evoke real life is mighty impressive, especially since they're also able to wring humor out of their individual characters moments of cluelessness without coming off as exploitative.

While Jemaine Clement is a hoot as Jarrod, I must note that his character does end up being the biggest hindrance of Eagle vs. Shark since the third act of Waititi's script ends up shifting the focus too heavily onto his character and leads Lily leaving underutilized in this section. The prior two acts had handled balancing the two characters so well that I was left in the home stretch of the story wanting less Jarrod antics and more of how Lily was processing Jarrod's growing obsession with vengeance, though Horsley still does get some humorous moments to call her own in the later scenes of Eagle vs. Shark and her strong chemistry with Clement is very much intact in this portion of the plot as well.

While we're talking about aspects of the story, it's also worth noting how Waititi's script also makes fine use of some occasionally more stylized elements like a recurring stop-motion animated subplot involving apple cores that fits surprisingly well into an otherwise naturalistic tale. Similarly successful is a delightful supporting cast, which includes Waititi regular Rachel House, that very much keep in tandem with the realistically flawed aesthetic put forth by the two lead performances. There's really not a dud in the cast and they all help to make Eagle vs. Shark a film that, while not as strong as the two most recent comedy efforts by its writer/director, a charming and enjoyable debut feature from Taika Waititi.