Something in the Water 2024

Meg Hiftu Quasem and Kayla Natalie Mitson, a young couple, are taunted after a date night by a group of thugs who hurl homophobic slurs. Kayla’s defiant response, flashing two middle fingers, triggers a brutal assault that leaves Meg unconscious and Kayla shaken.

One year later, Meg travels to the West Indies to reconnect with Lizzie Lauren Lyle, Cam Nicole Rieko Setsuko, and Ruth Ellouise Shakespeare-Hart to celebrate Lizzie’s wedding to Dominic Gabriel Prevost-Takahashi, Cam’s brother. The mood is tense because Kayla—the other victim of the attack—will be there, and Meg hasn’t seen her since that night.

Before the wedding, Cam hires a boat to ferry the group to a secluded island several miles from the resort. Cam, Lizzie, and Ruth drop Meg and Kayla on a quiet beach to talk through their issues while they sail to another part of the island to make arrangements.

After a while, Meg and Kayla seek out their friends and pretend they’ve reconciled. While swimming, Ruth is bitten by a shark and bleeds heavily. The others haul her onto the boat and start back to shore, but the old, leaky hire boat takes on water and sinks, leaving the four women stranded far from land. With only one life jacket to share, Lizzie reveals she cannot swim and clings to a buoy for support as a large shark begins circling, drawn by Ruth’s blood.

Ruth bleeds to death, and the group reluctantly removes the life jacket to let the shark claim Ruth, hoping to give Meg and the others a better chance. Kayla decides to swim for help. Cam is attacked and eaten by the shark.

Meg and Lizzie cling to the buoy through the night, growing hungry and exhausted as darkness falls. A large yacht passes by at speed but fails to spot them. At dawn, Meg wakes to find herself alone, the life jacket still strapped to her, and realizes that Lizzie has sacrificed herself to improve Meg’s chances.

With multiple sharks circling, Meg sustains herself on a small rock as the tide shifts. Kayla arrives in a rescue boat just in time to pull Meg aboard. The two women decide to go home together, now bearing a shared trauma, and break the news to Dominic that Lizzie is dead.