The Lure (2015 film)

Plot

Some time in the 1980s, two mermaids, Golden and Silver (played by Michalina Olszańska and Marta Mazurek respectively), encounter a rock band relaxing and playing music on a beach in Poland. They accompany the band back to the nightclub where they regularly perform and begin playing gigs there, performing as strippers and backup singers. Their audiences are entranced by their singing and on-stage transformation. Silver falls in love with the guitarist Mietek (Jakub Gierszał), while Golden hungers for human prey.

Cast

Writing

Director Agnieszka Smoczynska called the film a "coming-of-age story", echoing her own youth. She recalled that her mother ran a nightclub, where she had her "first shot of vodka, first cigarette, first sexual disappointment and first important feeling for a boy." The mermaids were an abstraction that allowed her to tell her story without revealing too much of herself. The screenwriter Robert Bolesto sought to write a story based on two friends of his that frequented nightclubs in the 80s, which enthused Smoczynska and resonated with her own childhood.

Smoczynska also wanted the film to be a retelling of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, and developed her idea of mermaids from tales of the 14th–16th century that described them as the sisters of dragons, and hence made them part monstrous. She invented their need to feed on human hearts and that propensity to attack the larynx of their victims.

Themes

Agnieszka Smoczynska likened the mermaids to immigrants, abused by the locals (used in the sex industry) on their way to their real goal—America. She added they represent innocence, yet their odour and slime recalled girls maturing, "they menstruate, they ovulate, their bodies start smelling and feeling different."

Critical response

The film had a mixed reception in Poland. It won Best Debut Picture at the Gdynia Film Festival.

Rubina Ramji, film editor and reviewer for the Journal of Religion and Film, described the film as a "rock opera, a horror movie and fairytale story about mermaids all rolled up into one".

Guy Lodge of Variety praised it for its originality, describing it as "never less than arresting, and sometimes even a riot". However, he felt the screenplay lacked ideas in portraying the mermaids' vampiric attributes, and was unsure of the film's 1980s setting and whether it alluded to the politics of the time.

Its average Metacritic review score is 74/100.

Box office

The Lure garnered 14,899 admissions in its opening weekend in Poland from 112 cinemas, finishing at fifth place. The film received 41,776 admissions in total.