From Jaws to Deep Blue Sea to Sharknado, people love shark movies (let's not forget we also have things like Shark Week on TV every summer). Well, Netflix now has a shark movie of its very own for its subscribers to enjoy, Under Paris.
Under Paris is a French movie (if you don't want to read subtitles, English and other language dubbing is available) from director Xavier Gens (Lupin, Gangs of London) and starring Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) and Nassim Lyes (Julia). Bejo plays the brilliant scientist Sophia, who studies sharks but is traumatized by an incident when a Mako shark they were tracking seemingly out of nowhere attacked and killed her team.
Three years later, she is alerted by a young shark activist, Mika (Léa Léviant), that the same shark, which they called Lilith, has swam all the way from the Pacific Ocean to the Seine river in Paris. Sophia doesn't believe this to be possible, as Mako sharks can't survive in freshwater. However, when Sophia checks her old tracking system for Lilith, she too sees that the shark is supposedly in the river.
Sophia alerts the river police about Lilith, working with Adil (Lyes) and his team. Once Sophia convinces them there is indeed a shark in the river, they try and warn the mayor of Paris (Anne Marivin), but she is too concerned about the upcoming triathlon, a precursor to them using the Seine as a venue for the Olympics, to give them any help. Meanwhile, Mika has her own plans.
Passionate about saving sharks and creating an equitable balance with nature, Mika is confident Lilith isn't dangerous and she can safely lead her back out to sea. She invites others to attend her demonstration in the catacombs. But Sophia knows how dangerous Lilith can be, and so when she hears about Mika's plan she and Adil take their team to evacuate everyone.
When they arrive, Mika is already in the water attempting to draw Lilith to her. Despite Sophia's warnings, Mika remains confident that it isn't dangerous. However, it is then revealed that Lilith is not alone, she had a baby that is swimming with her. With Mika unwilling to listen, Adil dives in to try and rescue Mika, but it is too late, Lilith attacks Mika and kills her. This sets off a panic as the crowd of people runs for the exit, with many falling into the water and either being killed, having limbs bitten off or drowning.
After they finally clear the area, Adil and his team find the baby shark that was with Lilith is dead. They take it out of the water and have Sophia inspect it. She quickly realizes this is no ordinary Mako, but a new species that not only can survive in freshwater, but can reproduce without a male and at an early age. Sophia recognizes that this means there are more sharks with Lilith, and if they're not killed they could colonize the oceans indefinitely.
Do Sophia and Adil kill the sharks?
Even after the tragedy in the catacombs, the mayor still does not take any responsibility or listen to Sophia and Adil about needing to cancel the triathlon (immediately putting her in the running for all-time worst mayors in monster movies, alongside the ones from Jaws and Ghostbusters). Sophia and Adil won't just stand by, as they and the rest of the river police team form a plan to blow up the nest that Lilith has created in the catacombs to kill her and any of the baby sharks that she has produced.
When they reach the nest area, they discover that there are hundreds of sharks. They carefully work to set the bombs while not drawing the sharks' attention. However, when Lilith shows up she quickly puts a kibosh on that plan and attacks, killing multiple members of the team. One member, Adama (Ibrahima Ba), sacrifices himself so he can hit the detonator and blow up the nest. The explosion shoots Sophia and Adil out of the catacombs and back into the Seine, where other members of their team are waiting to retrieve them.
Sophia wants to check and make sure their plan worked, so after getting Adil on the boat she swims back underwater. Then she sees Lilith has survived and is coming out into the Seine. Lilith quickly attacks the boat with the other river police and kills more members of their team. Sophia and Adil are able to get on the overturned boat. Adil is worried Lilith is circling them for the kill, but Sophia quickly realizes she is in fact going toward the triathlon, which is underway with swimmers in the water.
As swimmers are being picked off and killed one by one, panic ensues when the crowd and the mayor realize what is happening. Military providing security starts shooting at Lilith hoping to kill her, but there's a problem with that.
Earlier in the movie, we learned there are hundreds of artillery shells from World War Two in the water, including where the triathlon is taking place. With bullets flying they risk hitting one of the bombs and setting it off. Sure enough, that happens and a chain reaction begins, setting off more and more of the bombs. This damages the walls of the river and causes a tidal wave that soon engulfs a large area of the city.
Sophia and Adil are able to get themselves on top of a newsstand roof not fully submerged, wondering if the explosions at least killed Lilith. But that is not the case. A shark fin swims by them, and then another and another. Not only did they not kill Lilith, but they failed to even kill all of the other sharks like her. This new species of shark now has a larger area to prowl.
What does the Under Paris ending mean?
While Under Paris is meant to be a fun B-movie where a giant shark rampages the city of Paris, that doesn't mean there isn't an underlying message to it all. The big one definitely seems to be that we need to treat our planet better or risk disrupting Mother Nature to a point where it could kill us.
The movie begins with a passage based on Charles Darwin: "The species that survive aren't the strongest species, nor are they the most intelligent, but rather the ones who best adapt to change."
Throughout the movie, we see the impact that humanity has had on nature through the floating trash barge in the Pacific which is the location of the movie's opening moments for the cause that Mika is fighting for. The movie posits that these human influences are ultimately what caused Lilith to adapt into a new species.
All in all, the movie is warning us to be cautious with how we treat Mother Nature, because we cannot know how our impact could ultimately force the climate and animals that we share the planet with to adapt and potentially change the status quo of how we live.
Under Paris is now streaming exclusively on Netflix.
