47 Meters Down – a Story Deconstruction

June 13, 2018

A guest post by Jennifer Blanchard

Note: This movie is currently available on Netflix

 Spoiler Alert: The following deconstruction is going to give you a complete overview of everything that happens in this story, and break down all the structure. I recommend you read through this in its entirety and then go watch the movie for comparison.

 I don’t know about you, but I’m a total story nerd. One of my hobbies is deconstructing movies. I actually find it fun to watch a movie and break down all of the structure points, so I can get a better, more thorough understanding of the story.

I’ve been wanting to write another guest post for Larry for awhile now and so today is one of those times where my nerdy hobby comes in handy.

I chose to do a deconstruction of 47 Meters Down for two reasons: 1. The Concept is incredible and I knew it was going to be an awesome study in craft, and 2. I’m obsessed with sharks.

(Quick insert from Larry: Jennifer is obsessed with STORY, too… which is why you need to soak this up. It’s a real gift for writers wanting to cross the bridge from fiction writing principles to a real-life story-case study that relies on them.)

Concept: Being low on air and trapped in a shark cage at the bottom of the ocean.

Premise: Two sisters go shark-diving in a shark cage while on vacation in Mexico. Everything’s going great until the the rusty-old equipment fails, plummeting them 47 meters down to the bottom of the ocean. Their scuba tanks are low on air, they’re in open ocean surrounded by an unknown amount of Great White Sharks, and their only way out is up.

Main Characters:

Lisa—Protagonist (Hero)Kate—Protagonist

The Ocean—Antagonistic Force

The Sharks—Antagonist (personifying the danger and unknowns of open ocean)

Secondary Characters:

Louis and Benjamin (aka: the guys)

Captain Taylor—boat captain

Javier—Taylor’s assistant

Part One: Set Up

As the credits are rolling, we’re shown faded images of the murky ocean bottom. Immediately after we’re shown a camera angle from below (just how a shark would see things—hint, hint!), looking up from the bottom of what we think is the ocean.

On the surface of the water we see someone floating in a raft with a glass full of red liquid.

Hook: A girl swims up from below (camera angle same as what a shark would see) and tips the girl off the raft, spilling her and the red liquid into the water (which looks exactly how blood in the water would look—hint, hint!).

We meet two sisters—Lisa and Kate—who are on vacation together in Mexico. After they get out of the pool, they have dinner and cheers to this being a great trip.

Soon after we find out that Lisa had a different motivation for going on this trip than she originally let on. She actually went on the trip because her live-in boyfriend broke up with her for not being fun or adventurous enough. She thought going on the trip would be a way to prove to him that she was fun, so he’d come back to her when she got home, that could be great with some remodeling and paint, with a professional painter services for this.

This moment tells us that this is Lisa’s story. She is the main Protagonist.

Kate decides to drag Lisa out for a night of fun. They go to a club where they dance, drink and meet two guys. They all hang out on the beach for the rest of the night until the sun comes up.

The sisters then go to dinner with the guys later that night where the guys tell them about how they go shark diving every weekend. Kate is immediately down to try it, but Lisa has major reservations, especially because she doesn’t know how to scuba dive.

Kate convinces her by pulling the ex-boyfriend card and telling her that she can take pictures of the sharks and send them to her ex as a way of showing him how fun and adventurous she actually is. Lisa agrees.

But the next morning when they show up to the boat, again, Lisa has reservations. She doesn’t feel right about it, and she’s nervous about not knowing how to scuba. But when the boat Captain, Taylor, asks them if they know how to scuba she lies and says that she does.

They ride a smaller boat out to meet the larger shark diving boat that will take them out to open ocean to go in the shark cage.

Once they arrive at the diving point, Taylor and his assistant, Javier, begin to chum the water with blood and fish guts, to attract the sharks to the boat.

Soon after a huge Great White shark arrives.

The guys go first; they put on their scuba gear, get in the cage and go down into the water with their camera. While the guys are down there, the girls are preparing themselves to go next.

Again, Lisa is panicking. She doesn’t want to do it, but Kate is pushing her, hard. Eventually she caves, says she’ll do it and the girls put on their scuba gear.

The guys come back up from diving in the cage and it’s the girls turn. Taylor explains to them about the air bars on the scuba tank and tells them to let him know when it reaches 50 because he’s going to bring them back up.

Right before they get into the cage, Kate asks if she can borrow the Louis’ camera. He says yes, but if she drops it, she has to go down to the bottom to get it (some really good foreshadowing here).

They get into the cage with the camera and Taylor and Javier lower them down.

The girls are in the cage, 5 meters below the water. Lisa settles in and she’s amazed at how incredibly peaceful and beautiful it all is.

But they’re not seeing any sharks. Taylor tells them to sit tight, and the guys chum the water some more.

While they’re waiting, Kate asks Lisa to take a picture of her and when she’s handing the camera over, Lisa accidentally drops it and it falls through the cage where they can’t reach it.

As they watch the camera fall, a Great White shark comes up from the depths and eats it. Now they’re surrounded by sharks.

While the girls are watching the sharks, the cage slips and they drop down a bit. Lisa panics and asks Taylor to bring them back up. He tells them everything is OK—the wench mechanism on the cage just slipped and he’s going to bring them back up.

Not a moment later…

First Plot Point: The wench fails, releasing the cable attached to the cage, which sends the cage plummeting—fast—to the bottom of the ocean (along with the crane the wench is attached to).

There were a lot of hints leading up to this moment, but the actual plot point is when the cage falls and then hits the ocean bottom. Now we have an Antagonist—personifying an Antagonistic Force—with an opposing goal (the girls’ goal is to get out alive; the sharks want to kill them). Now we know what’s at stake.

Now we have a story.

Part Two: Reaction

The speed of the fall and the intensity of the crash knocks Lisa out cold. She’s bleeding from her nose and has water inside her mask. She almost looks peaceful.

After a minute we hear Kate calling to Lisa and we’re pulled back into the chaos of what’s happening. Kate empties the water and blood from Lisa’s mask, releasing it into the water (blood attracts sharks). Lisa realizes where she is and what’s happened and she freaks out.

Kate does her best to calm her down, because panicking will just cause them to use up more oxygen and their tanks are already low. The girls discover they can’t reach Taylor because they’re just out of range of the radio.

Kate says if she swims up, she can get in range so she can talk to Taylor and find out what to do. But the girls discover that not only did the cage fall, but the entire crane and wench mechanism did too—and it’s currently blocking the door of the shark cage from opening.

So Kate decides to try and slip through the bars of the shark cage so she can get out and open the door. Problem is, she doesn’t fit through the bars with her scuba gear on. She has to take it off, swim through the bars, and then put it back on when she’s on the other side, which makes Lisa panic even more.

It’s their only option at this point, so Kate does it. Once she’s out, she says to Lisa that before she goes up to make contact with Taylor, she’s going to move the crane from the door, so Lisa can get out, in case Kate doesn’t make it. Lisa tells her not to talk like that.

Then Kate swims over to the door of the shark cage and attempts to move the crane out of the way. It’s trapped by some rocks, which she ends up having to move first.

After much effort, she manages to move the wench off the door so they can go in and out. Then she swims up and attempts to contact Taylor.

Pinch Point 1: Kate makes contact with Taylor and he tells her to get back into the cage because it’s the only safe place from the sharks. He tells her that whatever they do, they can’t rush up to the surface or they’ll get the bends (carbon dioxide bubbles in the brain, which will kill them).

 All of this is a reminder of the Antagonist and what’s at stake for them.

Taylor also tells Kate they installed a backup wench and Javier is coming down with a new cable to attach to the cage so they can pull them up. All they have to do is wait.

So that’s what they do… they wait. They sit in the cage together and talk about their regrets and their lives. Kate apologizes for getting them into this mess.

After a little while, they hear a noise that sounds like the boat left. Lisa freaks out so Kate decides to swim up again and try to make contact. No one is there, and then out of the darkness comes a shark.

It almost gets her, but she manages to get away and back to the cage. But the shark is swimming around them and attacking the cage.

They think it’s over… then the shark retreats back into the darkness.

Lisa is losing it, she can’t handle much more, and they realize their air is running very low.

Finally, Kate spots Javier’s flashlight out in the open water. He’s down there looking for them. But for some reason he’s not moving in their direction.

They assume he must not be able to see the cage in the murky water.

Kate’s air is almost out.

Midpoint: Lisa decides to leave the cage and go find Javier.

This officially shifts the direction of the story, because now they’re not just reacting to what happened. Lisa is now deciding to be intentional about rescuing them by going to find Javier, who has the backup wench that will pull them to safety.

Part Three: Attack

Kate talks Lisa through what she needs to do while she’s out of the cage—like staying as close to the bottom as possible to avoid a shark attack from below and how to use her BCD—and she takes off to go find Javier.

Soon after Lisa takes off, Kate begins yelling that there’s a shark coming after her. Lisa swims as fast as she can into a rock-cave, just narrowly avoiding the shark. She stays for a minute, but then the shark tries to get into the cave, which drives her out of the hole.

She continues to hide behind a rock, waiting for the shark to leave. Then she continues making her way toward Javier’s flashlight.

Lisa is doing OK, she’s staying close to the bottom and there are no sharks. But then she reaches the edge of a cliff where the bottom drops down and she can’t see it from where she is. Which means she now has to swim high above the bottom, and she has no idea what’s below.

Bravely she swims on and makes it to the flashlight, but Javier isn’t with it.

Lisa picks up the flashlight and begins to swim back to Kate when suddenly she realizes she has no idea which direction she just came from. She’s totally lost in open ocean, and when she calls for Kate, she doesn’t get an answer.

Swimming in circles, Lisa decides to choose a direction to swim in and she keeps going. But she swims right into a shark and narrowly avoids becoming its meal.

As she spins around, trying to figure out which direction to swim, she bumps into Javier, who screams at her to go back to the shark cage… right before a shark gets him.

Lisa screams and continues to make her way back to where she came from. Finally, she finds the ledge where she started and she’s able to stay close to the ocean floor again.

But she still doesn’t know which direction to go in. She calls out for Kate and finally Kate can hear her again. Lisa tells her to bang a rock on the cage so she knows what direction to swim in.

Just as she begins moving toward the cage Javier’s dead body lands in front of her. She freaks out, then goes to check his air supply and he’s completely out.

She sees the backup wench hooked to Javier’s belt and she pulls it off. She also finds a spear gun, which she can use to protect her and Kate from the sharks.

Lisa finally manages to make it back to the shark cage. She hands the spear gun to Kate, and then hooks the backup wench up to the top of the shark cage. They’re almost out of there.

After she’s done, Lisa swims up to make contact with Taylor and let him know they’ve attached the backup wench. He tells her to get back in the cage immediately.

Taylor begins pulling them up and the girls are so excited to be getting out of there. But then…

Pinch Point 2: The cable attached to the backup wench breaks, sending the cage plummeting—fast—back to the bottom of the ocean, only this time, it lands on its side and traps Lisa’s leg under it.

Again, we have a reminder of the Antagonistic Force and what’s at stake.

Kate tries to lift the cage off of Lisa’s leg, but it’s stuck and she can’t move it. Lisa is stuck and Kate will be out of air in minutes. So Kate swims up to try and make contact with Taylor.

When she does, he tells her the Coast Guard is on their way and they have a specialized rescue team equipped to get them out of there safely. He also tells her that he’s sending down two more air tanks, but they have to be very careful switching to a second tank because it puts them at risk of nitrogen narcosis, which will cause them to hallucinate.

The girls wait patiently for the tanks to drop down to the ocean bottom. Once they do, Kate leaves the cage to go and get them.

When she reaches the tanks, she’s out of air and she panics as she quickly attaches the new tank to her scuba gear. Once she does, she sees that Taylor has also sent down water flares, so they can signal once the Coast Guard gets there.

Kate makes her way back to the cage with the extra tank for Lisa. As she does, Lisa screams out that there’s a shark and Kate gets down as low as can and waits.

After a little bit she decides she’s done waiting and she picks up the tank and tries to swim to the door of the cage. But a shark gets her and she drops the tank, out of reach of the cage.

Lisa is trapped under the cage and has no idea if Kate is dead or alive. But she makes a decision… she’s not going to die down here.

She tries to pull her leg out from under the cage, but it’s no use. And her air is just about out. She can see the extra air tank, it’s just outside the door of the shark cage and she can’t reach it.

Lisa looks over and sees the spear gun. She realizes she can use the spear to pull the extra tank over to her. But as she tries to reach for it, she accidentally hits the trigger and the spear shoots toward her hand, slicing it open.

Now she’s bleeding into the water and she’s got the door open on the shark cage so she can try to use the spear to pull the extra tank over to her. After a lot of pain and effort, she pulls it close enough where she can reach it.

Lisa’s tank is now out of air. She fumbles with the scuba gear, trying to reattach the new tank. She’s not moving fast enough and she’s almost out of breath.

All hope seems lost. And then…

Second Plot Point: Lisa attaches the second tank to her scuba gear and now she can breathe again.

 The All-Hope-Is-Lost moment—where you think Lisa’s a goner—is a signal that the Second Plot Point is about to happen, as this moment always happens immediately before it. And that’s how you know that, even though it was a genius idea to use the spear to get the tank, it’s not the SPP. There was still more to come.

After the SPP, no new information can come into the story. Everything that shows up must be set up, hinted at, foreshadowed or mentioned previously. And the Protagonist is now ready to step up, be the hero and defeat the Antagonist.

Part Four: Resolution

Lisa sits there for a few minutes, just breathing the oxygen in. She’s calm, peaceful.

And then she’s staring at the blood coming out of her hand from where the spear sliced it open.

As she sits there staring at it, suddenly she hears Kate. She’s alive, but she’s badly hurt, bleeding and sharks are circling her.

At first Lisa tries to get Kate to just stay calm and focus on her breathing, but Kate’s in bad shape. So Lisa decides she has to rescue her.

Lisa looks around and then realizes she can use her BCD (a piece of diving equipment with an inflatable bladder) as leverage to raise the cage up off of her leg. She places the bag under the cage and then inflates it.

As it inflates it raises the cage enough for Lisa to pull her leg out from under it (although she rips her skin as she does and now she’s bleeding from two places). Despite the pain, Lisa is now free.

She calls out for Kate and then leaves the cage to go and find her. After a minute or so she finds Kate, laying by a rock on the bottom of the ocean. She’s still alive, but just barely.

Lisa decides that they can’t wait for the Coast Guard, they have to swim up to the surface now or Kate won’t make it. So she activates one of the flares as an attempt to ward off the sharks, and they begin swimming up.

Once they get up a few meters, they’re back in range of Taylor and they let him know that they’re coming up. He tells them they have to come up slowly and do a decompression stop when they get to 20 meters.

They slowly swim up and when they get to 20 meters, they stop and he counts down the minutes until they’re able to keep moving up. As they’re waiting the flare goes out.

Kate tries to pull another one, but she drops it. Lisa grabs the final flare and ignites it just as three sharks are closing in on them. She violently flails the flare around, trying to keep the sharks back until the decompression time is done and they can make a break for the surface.

As soon as Taylor calls time, the girls take deep breaths, remove all their scuba gear and break for the surface.

At the surface, they scream for help. Taylor throws them a life preserver and they grab hold of it. They’re almost there.

And then just when they think they’re safe… they get attacked by a shark. Multiple times, and almost don’t make it out of the water.

By some miracle, Taylor and the guys manage to pull Lisa and Kate into the boat. They’re laying there, mangled and on the brink of death, and Lisa is saying over and over again, “we made it Kate, we made it.”

But then we hear Taylor’s voice. It sounds robotic.

Something isn’t right here…

Lisa looks at her hand again, the blood is still coming out of it. And suddenly we realize what’s happened… she has nitrogen narcosis and she’s hallucinating.

They’re not really on the boat.

Lisa is still trapped under the shark tank.

And Kate really is dead.

Finally Lisa snaps to, just as the Coast Guard arrives to rescue her. They slowly bring her to the surface, and she is overcome with a mix of emotions as she realizes she really is going to live, but her sister didn’t.

I loved this twist ending to this movie because you totally didn’t see it coming (I didn’t), and yet it was set up and hinted at earlier, when Taylor told Kate the reason he didn’t want to send down the second set of tanks was because it put them at risk of nitrogen narcosis. Kate’s death was also hinted at earlier, when she first got out of the shark cage and she told Lisa that before she went up to make contact with Taylor she was going to move the crane from blocking the door of the cage, just in case she didn’t make it and Lisa needed to get out.

Overall this was an amazing study in story and a lesson you can get in only 90 minutes (I admit I’ve watched this movie about 15 times now).

Have you ever seen 47 Meters Down? What did you think of the twist ending? Did you see it coming? Share in the comments.

About the Author: Jennifer Blanchard a multi-passionate author, screenwriter, blogger and coach who is on a mission to change the way writers think and challenge what they believe is possible. In early 2009, after years of struggling with her stories, she found Larry Brooks and learned about story structure, which changed everything for her. She published her debut novel, SoundCheck, in 2015. Grab her FREE Story Secrets audio series and get the inside scoop on the things Jennifer sees writers getting wrong most often in their stories, so you can get it right.