The director, Erich Cannon, presents a family film about grief in Braving Rapids. It tells the story of a family that recently lost its patriarch to an unnamed illness. The mother, Stevie (Melanie Stone), is trying to raise her three kids, Jake (Nate Morley), Chance (Thomas Carroll), and Gracie (Amy Luu). Gracie, the youngest child, suffers from an abandonment issues because Stevie adopted her from an orphanage in Taiwan. Bad dreams and complicated behavior from Chance affect her development and well-being. The mother decides that a rafting trip is a welcome distraction to their daily drama, and they travel to encounter Nick (Andrew James Diaz), who has a rafting company on the riverside. Their adventure through the river changes when they find Rapids, a puppy abandoned in the water, and Gracie quickly attaches to it. The group protects the animal from a couple of smugglers who wander in the woods searching for young hounds to sell on the black market.
The director uses genre conventions to create a metaphor about the life of that family. In a straightforward analysis, the river represents their current life situation – curves, depressions, and crooked ways ahead of them. In this sense, the film follows the archetype of an exploration film in developing the characters’ story. Accordingly, the camping trip symbolizes distancing themselves from the problems of the mother’s life. She is dealing with selling the house, mourning her late husband, and taking care of her children. Yet, she decides that life must go on and needs to date again. However, the middle child, Chance, is not fond of the possibility of a new person in his mother’s romantic life and is usually rude to possible suitors. Stevie needs to move on and continue living her life, but the protectiveness of her child and self-doubts keep her from that possibility.
Visually, it is essential to reflect on the smaller scope of this independent production. It is notable during the watch that there is a lack of funding to paint a broader scope to the adventurous aspect of the film. Cannon is competent in filming the water scenes and providing a sense of what is happening in the rafts. But poor editing work undermines the impact in a few of the scenes. For example, the editor decides to cut quickly to capture the reactions to the conversations and dangers of wildlife, and a few of those cuts are not cohesive with the rational structure of the editing work. Some of those reactions are random to the specific scene and break the rhythm of the conversation or event. In a determined moment, Chance gets behind the walk of the gang to protect the hound from a wildcat; however, the editing does not impose risk to that situation, and the cuts are not as efficient as they may be in an action sequence. Hence, it lands in an odd spot. The editing fills some of the blanks in transitions with arbitrary imagery, primarily computer-generated wild animals, to fade from one scene to another. It falls into a strange combination of images to create emotions in the scenes that feature risk.
Additionally, the film features a compelling performance from Melanie Stone, a caring and loving widow who does her best for the well-being of her children. At the same time, the mother is trying to balance the past and the future. The grief and what the future may hold next, including a relationship with Nick. Nick is a former friend of her late husband and a tremendous and generous friend to her now. It does not feature a moral dilemma attached to it, in terms of a former friend involving his wife, because it focuses on the late husband’s desire for her to find someone who will take care of her and their children. In this aspect, it simplifies deeper discussions about grief and the recovery of a young family. It focuses on being a feel-good and family film. Because of that, it is a valuable option for a family watch. It is noteworthy that the film is independent and has a smaller scale than the average Hollywood adventure or other prominent international markets.
Braving Rapids may provoke strangeness in a couple of odd transitions and visual decisions that end up in the uncanny valley, such as the random wild animals walking on the rocks. However, it is a film that provides simple and effective storytelling about grief. Melanie Stone has a solid performance as a mother searching for comfort and finding it in the adventure of the river. It sums The film is a comforting yet simplistic story of loss.
Braving Rapids (Desafiando los Rapidos) is available to watch on SparkTV.
Learn more about the film at the IMDB site for the title.
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