Anne Marie Chadwick (Kate Bosworth) lives in a falling-down shack on the north coast of Oahu with her friends Eden (Michelle Rodriguez) and Lena (Sanoe Lake), as well as her younger sister Penny (Mika Boorem). The three older girls pass their spare time as maids in a local luxury hotel, so that they can pay rent, electricity and phone bills (not necessarily all in the same month), as well as buying bowls to catch the rain that comes in through the roof. Their real vocation is, of course, surfing. Anne Marie was on track to being a champion surfer until, some three years before, she suffered an accident that left her … well, “once burned, twice shy”. She now has ambitions to make a comeback in the “pipeline”, the world-class surfing event. Question is: does she have the guts? A dalliance with mainland football star Matt Tallman (Matthew Davis, somewhat more simpatico here than in Legally Blonde) may be the discovery of the love of her life — or simply a means of avoiding having to go back into the water.

Not a bad movie, especially if you like big, big waves, the kind that roll people over and batter them if they don’t know how to handle themselves. I won’t recommend the movie for the plot, but you might want to see it on the big screen for the waves.