One of the first things I noticed about this movie is just how skinny Tom Hanks is. And it's not like he's ever been overweight, but when you watch this movie, you just can't help but notice how skinny he looks! Of course, he was pretty young in this...28, although I would have guessed even younger! This was his first big starring movie as well as the first big movie directed by Ron Howard.
The movie starts with a flashback twenty years ago where we see young Alan Bauer (Tom Hank's character) as a child on a boat with his family on Cape Cod. (I've been there! My favorite place I visited was Chatham!) Alan, about eight years old is looking down in the water and suddenly just jumps in! Of course, his parents and everyone else start freaking out. Alan definitely saw something because he's underwater with a young blonde girl about his age. We don't see that she's a mermaid (but we know she is one!) until he's back on the boat and dried off. Not too far off, she's just bobbing in the water and he sees her, but nobody else on the boat notices that a young girl is just bobbing in the water! And it's not like she's trying to hide herself or anything! She then dives back into the water and that's when we see she has a tail fin. Gasp! She's a mermaid!
We're now twenty years later in New York City where Alan and his older brother, Freddie (John Candy), have a produce business. It seems totally random. Alan has a girlfriend he lives with named Victoria, but we never meet her. In fact, she breaks up with him within the first five minutes of the audience meeting him as an adult because he never told her he loved her. This happens the same day he and his brother are ushers at a fellow friend's wedding and everyone keeps asking where Victoria is and he lies and tells them she's sick until he just screams at one guy (who didn't even ask about her) that she left him and how she broke his heart. It sounded like he did have feelings for her because he keeps going on how how "brilliant" and "beautiful" she was. Not really sure why he never told her he loved her, I guess he had commitment issues or something. Though if they were already living together, that was a big step anyway. Well, it doesn't really matter. I guess they just wanted to show us that he was in a relationship, but now he's not and he's sad because now he thinks he'll never find anyone.
After the ceremony, Alan is feeling down and he tells Freddie he's going to Cape Cod because he likes it there and it makes him better better: "I look out at the water and I feel closer to something." Still wearing his tux from the wedding, he hails a cab to take him to Cape Cod. I have so many questions: why is he going right now? Why didn't he at least go home to change, or, I don't know pack a suitcase? I don't know how long he plans to stay on Cape Cod, but you'd think he'd want a change of clothes and some toiletries! This seems very spontaneous and probably the result of drinking too much.
It's 300 miles to Cape Cod and the sun is just starting to come up when he gets there. We see him walking along the beach, coming up to a scientist named Walter Kornbluth (Eugene Levy) and his two bumbling idiot assistants unloading a box containing some equipment for a diving expedition. Alan walks up to them and tells them he was "dropped off on the wrong side of the beach" and asks if he could take him over to the island. I would love to know what part of Cape Cod they're on, but we are never told. Walter tells him they can't get him a lift on their boat because they're not heading that way, so Alan tries his luck with someone else. Walter thinks that he must be a spy.
Alan gets a ride in a very small boat from a random guy. He tells the guy he can't swim and the guy, being a jerk, starts rocking the boat to scare Alan. This causes the boat to end up stalling and the guy can't get the motor to start so he just jumps into the water, telling him he'll go back for the other boat. He says the shore is only a few miles away, but I don't see any land anywhere nearby! And there are sharks in these waters! I know because when I visited Cape Cod, I saw signs warning about sharks! He says he'll bring back the smaller boat and Alan is aghast by this because the boat they're already in is so teeny-tiny.
On the boat with the scientist and his assistants, Walter uses his binoculars to spot Alan sitting alone in the small boat and assumes he's spying on them. Alan tries to start the engine himself, but ends up falling into the water. On the bright side, he actually got the boat to start (so that guy swam to shore for nothing), but the boat seems to have a mind of its own and it knocks Alan on the head and he starts to sink. His wallet falls out and hits the sea floor, but, luckily, before he can hit the sea floor, he is saved by somebody "mysterious" (let's be honest, we all know who saves him!) and he ends up on a beach with clear blue waters and a white sandy beach. Wow, the mermaid must have swam a long, long way with Alan (try 1200 miles, the distance from Cape Cod to Nassau) because that is most definitely NOT Cape Cod! I'm pretty sure they're in the Caribbean (I looked it up and some scenes were filmed in the Bahamas). The fact that they're trying to pass this for Cape Cod is just hilarious.
Alan isn't unconscious for too long and when he gets up he sees a beautiful blonde woman crouching in the flora staring at him. Except for a beaded necklace adorned with seashells and her long hair covering certain body parts, she is completely naked. She walks up to him, kisses him (and not just a peck on the lips, it lasts for quite a few seconds), then jumps into the ocean and swims away. He calls for her to come back, then bemoans the fact that he never learned how to swim. When he turns his back to start walking away from the water, we see her jump into the air like a dolphin. I can only imagine his reaction if he had seen that!
We see her swimming underwater. This is not the 2023 version of The Little Mermaid where they are using special effects to make it look like Daryl Hannah is underwater; no, she is actually swimming around underwater. There are many cuts so either she came up for air or was given a tube to breathe in before they shot again.
She has found Alan's wallet on the sea floor and takes it to a wrecked ship nearby where she finds an old timey map of New York. It's apparent that she's very familiar with this ship and what's on it. She's able to find out Alan lives in New York from his driver's license and uses the map of New York to figure out where it is, I guess. I'm not really sure how she does this without knowing any English. I would assume she also doesn't know the Latin alphabet either.
During a group tour of the Statue of Liberty, everyone is shocked when they see a completely nude woman walk towards them. They all start pointing their cameras at her and taking photos. While I'm sure this is the furthest from home she's ever been, we know she's seen humans (like on the boat when she was a young mermaid) so she has to know they wear clothes. You would think she would find something to cover up with. We next see her wearing a t-shirt and she's on a boat with the Coast Guard. Two guys are trying to figure out who she is and where she came from, but they soon realize she doesn't understand English. We get a funny exchange where one guys states, "She don't speak no English" and the other guy replies, "And you do?" Ha! Nice zinger. That would totally be my reply too.
They find the wallet she was carrying and she points to the picture of Alan, so they call him. He's at work when he gets the call and he practically sprints to the police station. He even double parks in front of two police cars...I'm sure the cops loved that! The blonde woman greets Alan with a long kiss and he takes her back to his apartment.
Okay, a couple things before I continue. First of all, I know it's annoying I keep referring to MADISON as "the blonde woman" or "the beautiful blonde", but this is because she hasn't received her name yet and I feel like it's not right to call her Madison (even though we all know that's her name!). So just bear with me...we're almost to that part of the movie and I can refer to her as Madison for the rest of the review, yay! Second of all, if this movie was made today, there would be a lot more depth to Alan and Madison's, excuse me, the beautiful blonde's relationship. Let's be honest: Alan only likes her because she's gorgeous and she keeps making out with him, right? It must be mermaid mating season because she cannot keep her hands off of him. It just seems to be a physical attraction (especially on Alan's end!) and if this movie was made today, they would, you know, actually have our two main characters get to know each other. Hell, they already kind of remade this movie with the 2023 version of The Little Mermaid, if you think about it!
After spending some "quality time" with his new "friend", Alan goes back to work in a cheerful mood, singing "Zippity Do Dah" and everyone is like "Wha-?" because it wasn't that long ago he was being a Debbie Downer.
After buying a bunch of ugly clothes (I realize they're not supposed to be ugly, but to my modern eye, they are!), she makes a stop at the antiquated technology department and starts watching all the shows that are on the TVs on display.
When Alan returns home after work, he realizes she's not there and he runs downstairs and asks the doorman if he's seen her and hurries to Bloomingdales. (I've been there!) By the time he gets there, the store is getting ready to close, but he convinces them to let him in. He runs all over the store and finds her in the electronics department, dancing to a Richard Simmons exercise video. The manger tells Alan that she's been there for six hours! He also tells him that he told her it was closing time, but she didn't seem to understand and Alan tells him it's because she doesn't speak English. Right after he says that, she says, "Hello, Alan. How was you day?" in very clear English, then thanks the Boomingdale's employee for letting her use the televisions and that it "was very educational."
Now that she can communicate, Alan finally gets to ask her what her name is, but she tells him it's hard to say in English. We soon figure out why this is when she starts screeching like a dolphin and all the TV screens break. Uh...I hope he doesn't have to pay for all of those! Surely the store has insurance!
They walk back to Alan's apartment with Alan carrying her merchandise in two "big brown bags" and three huge boxes. He doesn't seem to mind that she purchased all of this with his money. He asks her why she hasn't said anything to him until now and she tells him because she didn't know English. Duh, Alan. But to be fair to him, he doesn't understand how she suddenly is fluent in it now. She tells him she learned it in the six hours when she was watching TV. Mermaids must learn at a much faster rate than normal humans because there is no way you could learn a language fluently in six hours!
Finally, finally, about 45 minutes into the movie, our human mermaid is given her name. Well, her pronounceable name! Alan tells her she needs a name and gives her a list of very common women's names. As they're coming up on Madison Avenue, he wonders out loud where they are and says "Madison" as he's reading the street sign. His female companion tells him she likes "Madison" and wants that to be her name. He sort of laughs her off and tells her it's not a name. Well, guess what, Alan, the joke's on you because it certainly is now! This is from the Splash Wikipedia article:
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's book Freakonomics (2006) credits the film with popularizing the name Madison for girls, as does Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought (2007). In the film, Hannah's character takes her name from Madison Avenue (itself named after President James Madison) after walking past a road sign. Hanks' character comments that it is not a real name as, at the time, it was a rather unusual name for a woman. However, in the years since the film was released in theaters and re-released on VHS and then DVD, the name's popularity has skyrocketed.[35]
According to the Social Security Administration, the name Madison was the 216th most popular name in the United States for girls in 1990, the 29th most popular name for girls in 1995, and the third most popular name for girls in 2000.[36] In 2005, the name cracked the top 50 most popular girls' names in the United Kingdom, and articles in British newspapers credit the film for the popularization
The third most popular name for girls born in the U.S. in the year 2000! I can believe that too! I remember this name being VERY popular around that time. If this movie gave us anything, it was the popularization of the name "Madison". So Madison is born and Alan makes a joke that it was a good thing they weren't on 149th Street.
Alan wakes up and hears the water running in the bathroom. He knocks on the door (which is locked) and asks her what she's doing and she tells him she's taking a bath. He asks if he can come in and she tells him no, then starts to panic and gets out of the tub, but since she doesn't have legs she falls to the floor with a thud. He gets concerned and tries to open the door, but she tells him everything is fine. She's frantically trying to dry her tail so her legs will reappear. Alan is still insisting that he needs to get in there; he tells her something is wrong and she needs to open the door. I don't like Alan in this scene. Yes, I realize he is worried for her well-being, but she is obviously fine as she's talking to him so it's not like she's unconscious. He breaks the door open and finds her laying on a rug, covered in towels. We see her spin around and it is revealed she has legs. She gets up and tells him she wouldn't let him in because she was shy. He is baffled by this because she wasn't shy in the car, elevator, bedroom, or on top of the fridge. Good Lord those two sure do move fast! And they haven't even known each other for 24 hours! I'm surprised that Alan didn't notice the box of salt that was sitting on the edge of the tub.
We return to Walter and his two moron assistants on the boat and he sees that one of them is reading The Star Confidential and the cover story is titled "Beauty Bares All at Statue of Liberty." He recognizes the woman as the mermaid he saw and demands to be taken back to shore.
Walter has come to the American Museum of Natural History (I've been there!) to tell them about the mermaid. None of them believe him and are angry that he wasted their time. He decides he's going to prove to all of them that the girl in the paper is a mermaid. He's on a mission to soak Madison with water so everyone will see that he's right. He must have figured out where she was because he's waiting for them in his car outside Alan's apartment and when he sees them leave and walk down the sidewalk, he gets out of the car and retrieves two large buckets full of water from the backseat. The fact that he was driving around with two large buckets full of water is just amusing to me. He hurries after them, running through crowds of people, water sloshing from the buckets. It looked like he was doing a challenge from Survivor. He sees a blonde woman in a turquoise coat (the same color Madison is wearing) looking at a window display and throws the water on her. Of course, it's not Madison and he gets slugged by the woman's husband.
After dinner, they go ice skating at Rockefeller Center (that ice rink looks so dinky!) and when they take a break, he tells her he wants to talk about what happened at the restaurant and she tells him that's how they eat lobster where she comes from. But he tells her that he wasn't talking about that, that earlier he was trying to ask her something, but "did it very badly". He wanted to know if she wanted to get married. Yes, he did a pretty poor job of asking her that. He then proposes to her and she looks very distraught and tells him "No." He asks "No? Just no? You don't wanna think about it? You don't wanna kick it around?" I mean, to be fair to Madison, they've only known each other for three days. It's a terrible idea for them to get married. She tells him she can't marry him and she can't tell him why. That has to be frustrating for Alan. He tells her that he knows she has "some big secret that you think you can't tell me, but you can." She replies she has three days left and wants to "make them wonderful." I get why Alan is frustrated, but he's being pretty pouty. They see an older, happy couple skating and she comments how happy they look and he replies they should be happy because they get to spend their lives together. He ends up upsetting her and she runs off.
It starts raining and he's looking everywhere for her. She's hiding in an alley, trying to keep dry. (Yep, that would be pretty awkward if she got caught in the rain!) She comes back to him the next day and simply tells him "Yes", then adds that before they get married, she needs to tell him everything, but she's not ready to tell him today.
They go back to his building and get on the elevator to head up to his apartment. In the lobby, we see a guy mopping. We don't see his face, but I knew it was going to be Walter. (I was right, though the cast he was wearing on his arm probably gave it away. That guy really did a number on him.) I thought he was going to dump the dirty mop water on Madison, but I guess even he thought that was too extreme. After Madison and Alan get on the elevator he races up the stairs to their floor. He gets there before the elevator and grabs his camera which he had hiding behind a large potted plot and breaks the glass containing the firehose. He has it aimed at the elevator doors and when they open he sprays the occupants inside it. Those two people just so happen to be the same woman and her husband from earlier. What are the odds of that in a huge city like New York? Once again, the man pummels Walter.
Where are Alan and Madison, you ask? They have come back down to the lobby because Alan decides that they're going to get hitched in Maryland because you don't need a blood test there like you do in New York to get married. So this greatly confused me because why would you need a blood test to get married? Is it to make sure you're not related to your potential spouse? I looked this up and apparently it was to "prevent people with STDs from obtaining marriage licenses and passing the disease to a spouse or children of the marriage." Uh, do they realize you don't need to be married to pass it on? This is no longer the case, but it was only in 2019 when all 50 states abolished this rule. Look at that! I learned something from a forty-year-old Tom Hanks movie!
Alan suddenly remembers that they're supposed to go to a political dinner with the POTUS as a speaker, but he says they can go after. Don't ask me why he was invited to some big fancy dinner with the President as the Guest of Honor. I'm sure it was explained, but I just forgot. But it is part of the plot, so that's why it's in here.
At the banquet, we see Walter in the kitchen, posing as a waiter in a red coat. He tells the head chef that the union sent him. I'm not sure that's exactly how it works. Don't they need to vet these people first to make sure they're not a danger to the President? Not only that, but as the head chef, I would be concerned that one of my waiters has a broken arm, a neck brace, and one of the lenses in his glasses are shattered. Somehow, Walter has managed to sneak a hose attached to two canisters which he has hiding under his waiter's jacket and it's so obvious he's got something hiding under there. How did he even get past security with this stuff? I know it was 1984, but sheesh! Unless it was already there? I think I'm asking questions I'm not supposed to be asking. So obviously Walter is attempting to spray Madison with the hose (don't even ask me how he knew they were gonna be here; he must have just followed them), but I thought he was accidentally going to spray the President instead. (No, that one couple was not in attendance.) But the secret service are doing their job. When Walter is carrying a bowl of rolls towards Madison, one of them sees him with this huge hump under his coat and talks into his earpiece, telling the others, "Table five. Intercept busboy with suspicious hump." Just as they see him reaching for the hose that's inside his jacket, they quickly and quietly surround him and escort him out as he's telling them what he's doing has "nothing to do with the president." Ha! Like they believe that.
During the president's speech, Madison tells Alan that it's time for her to tell him. He's surprised she wants to do it now, and frankly, so am I. She doesn't want to do it in the dining room with all these people (good call), so they get up to leave. Walter is outside with the secret service team and the press when they walk out. Alan sees him and tells Madison that he knows that guy. He remembers seeing him on the beach on Cape Cod. Walter sees them and he grabs the hose to spray Madison. Guess the secret service didn't do a good job of restraining him! I was a little confused why she didn't run away when she saw him reaching for it, then figured she probably didn't know what it was until he started spraying her. She falls and all the cameras are flashing. It makes sense now why they have this random banquet with the President; they needed the media there to capture this. Everyone is looking at her with shocked expressions and the camera pans back to reveal she has transferred to a mermaid. She's calling for Alan to help her, but he can only stare in shock at her. The secret service take her to a research facility at the Natural History Museum that is heavily guarded.
They must have also taken Alan (whether he went willingly or they had to force him, we never see) because the next scene shows him in a tank of water. He is standing, completely naked, covering his groin with his hands. There are wires to monitor him. I guess since he was with Madison they think he might be a merman. It's hilarious when he yells, "I am not a fish!" We soon find out he's been in that tank for TWELVE HOURS so I can't blame him for being more than a little agitated. The scientists bring in Madison because they want to see some "interaction". It soon becomes clear to them that Alan is just a mere man (not a merman!) and the next thing he knows, he's being let out of a van, blindfolded, at his apartment building. He is surrounded by reporters ready to pounce and ask him about the mermaid, but he is saved by Freddie who pulls up in his car and drives them to their business. Everyone there is staring at him and Freddie says "What are you looking at? You've never seen a guy who slept with a fish before?" I mean, when you say it like that, ew. Also, I don't think mermaids would appreciate being called fish and she was technically a human when she was with him as she had legs and other parts of the right anatomy, I assume. So she was 100% a human when he was with her; he never "slept with a fish".
Alan is upset he met a woman that he really liked, but she isn't even (truly) a human. Freddie tells him he's lucky that he even met someone to make him feel that way and not everyone is as lucky as he is.
Walter is in the lab where they have Madison in the tank, hooked up to all kinds of machines for testing. He starts to grow a conscious and thinks she looks a little pale. The main scientist, Dr Ross, wants to do a few more tests, than thinks she'll be ready for "the internal examination." Yikes! Walter questions this and Dr. Ross tells him he wants to study her pulmonary system and reproductive organs among other things. Actually, it would be fascinating to know know how a mermaid breathes.
There's another guard posted at the door of the room Madison is in and they manage to get through without any questions. Madison and Alan share a passionate kiss and Alan jokingly asks her if the big secret she's been keeping from him is that she's a mermaid or is there something else. She tells him not to feel guilty about not loving her anymore. Uh, he's happy to see you and he ran up to kiss you; obviously he loves you. She realizes that he does love her and this makes her very happy.
To distract the guard, Walter comes out, all panicky and demands him to stand back. He goes back in and comes out second later with Alan and they are carrying what is clearly Madison, but she' covered in towels and rags. They tell him it's the other doctor and that when he went to examine the mermaid, "these rays came out of her eyes." The guard is about to go in, but they warn him not to or "she'll melt your face right off." Walter also instructs him not to let anyone else in the room and tells him he'll be back with nuclear weapons. I'm surprised the guy didn't notice the difference in weight (the person they were carrying was clearly not an overweight man!) or ask to double check to see who they were carrying out. Once Madison is in the passenger seat of Alan's car, she takes off her disguise. She's also been dried off so she has legs.
We see Dr. Ross with the two actual Swedish scientists. When the first guard realizes who they are, he tells that that Dr. Kornbluth left with what he thought were the two visiting Swedes not that long ago. They immediately check the room with the tank and Freddie is sitting with his feet in the water and has a fishing pole. (Where did they find a fishing pole?) Once they realize their mermaid is missing, everyone is sent out to find her and bring her back.
They soon realize they're being pursued and when they're in an alley, Walter tells Alan to stop the car so he can get out and slow them down. As he tells Madison, "I caused all this. Now, I'm gonna finish it." He's let out and Alan and Madison continue driving away. Walter stands in front of an oncoming armored truck and puts his hand out as though he's a traffic cop attempting to stop traffic. The car doesn't show any signs of slowing down or stopping so he has to jump out of the way.
After a few minutes of being chased, Alan drives near the Hudson River and they get out and embrace. Madison tells him, "I was ready to stay with you forever." He tells her that since they know who she is, they're never going to leave her alone. And you know that everyone in the world knows about her, or will soon know about her. I don't think groundbreaking news like this traveled as fast as it does now than it did in 1984, but the entire world will soon find out about this. He says he wishes he could go with her (do you really, Alan?) and she tells him he can. This is when he finds out that she was the young mermaid he saw in the water when he "fell" overboard. I'm honestly shocked he didn't figure this out already when he found out Madison was a mermaid. Like, duh, of course she was the young blonde mermaid he saw when he was a child! She asks him if he felt safe when he was with her and he says he did and she says this is because he was with her. Uh, he was only in the water for less than thirty seconds. I think going to live underwater permanetly is quite a different thing! You know, Walter really did mess everything up. If it hadn't been for him, Alan and Madison could have been living a happy life together on land. Alan thinks everything will work out though. He can go live with Madison in the depths of the ocean and come back and visit Freddie at Christmas. Just like Hannah Montana, he'll get the best of both worlds! Madison bursts his bubble when she tells him he'll never be able to return. I'm not sure if this is because they'll still be looking for him or he will have adapted to life under the sea ("is better than anything they got up there!") and will physically be unable to come back to land, but I'm guessing it's the former because Madison was able to come to land with no problems. Now Alan isn't so sure anymore and Madison realizes he's not coming with her and she tells him she understands. The trucks and cars and helicopters are getting closer and she dives into the river.
It takes a few seconds for Alan to realize he does want to be with her and jumps into the river. He still can't swim (great idea going to live with your mermaid girlfriend in the water when you can't swim) and immediately starts sinking. The tac team have now put on their scuba gear and are diving in to retrieve him. Madison swims up to Alan and kisses him and I guess her underwater kiss has granted him the ability to breathe underwater and swim. That's one powerful kiss! They fight off the men and swim away. Apparently the Hudson River is full of coral and tropical fish! As they're swimming, a schmaltzy song starts playing and immediately I was reminded of the schmaltzy song that is played at the end of Teen Wolf. Here are the lyrics that play while Alan and Madison are swimming:
One fine day love came for me. And love was rare as love can be. I saw stars shining in clear blue skies. We flowed together once and forever. Love came for me. One fine night love let us see how far we'll go, how good we'll be. We saw a world no one ever saw before. It was the world love can start with a beat of a heart. Love came for me.
Who wrote that? A five-year-old? That being said, the lyrics to the Teen Wolf song are worse if you can believe it.
