Snorkeling Review: Visceral and Personal!

August 4, 2025August 11, 2025 Surya Komal 1 Comment

Teen drug use has been explored in countless ways, but Snorkeling, the debut feature by Emil Nava, attempts to peel back the glossy dramatizations and dive into something far more visceral and personal. Known for his high-octane, emotionally charged music videos for global pop icons, Nava steps into narrative filmmaking with a story that is clearly drawn from his own life and struggles. It aims to capture the fragility of young love, the seduction of chemical escape, and the consequences that ripple out from chasing an artificial high. This is not a surface-level drama; it’s a film built from a place of rawness and lived experience.

The film follows teenagers Michael (Daniel Zolghadri) and Jameson (Kristine Froseth), whose romance begins as something tender and intimate but gradually tumbles into chaos. Their relationship becomes entangled with a street drug which strips away fear and inhibition, offering users a sense of invincibility and detachment from reality. Through this drug, they enter a dreamlike space where consequences seem to dissolve—until they don’t. The narrative oscillates between moments of joy, numbness, panic, and quiet tragedy.

What deserves real recognition here is the sheer amount of thought and craft that went into making Snorkeling feel as wild and fragmented as the minds it portrays. Nava’s background in music videos means he’s no stranger to fast-cut, kinetic filmmaking, but here, that technique is taken to another level. The film moves between hallucination and reality with disorienting rhythm, and this isn’t just the work of clever post-production editing. For the story to jump so fluidly—and jarringly—between moments, emotions, and timelines, the chaotic structure had to be baked into the screenplay itself. Planning that level of narrative fragmentation takes foresight and discipline.

It’s an overwhelming but deliberate aesthetic choice, making the entire film feel like a trip: sometimes euphoric, sometimes terrifying. In a genre where it’s easy to fake intensity with flash, Snorkeling earns its frenzy by embedding it deep within the storytelling process. The result is a film that feels authentically unstable, as though it’s unraveling right along with its characters. That cohesion between form and theme is not easy to achieve and is one of the film’s most impressive feats.

Another strong element of Snorkeling is the performances by Daniel Zolghadri and Kristine Froseth, who carry the emotional weight of the film with remarkable vulnerability. Since the film is so tightly focused on their journey, it’s crucial that both actors bring nuance and emotional depth—and they absolutely deliver.

Visually, the film maintains a consistently strong aesthetic. The camera often lingers, floats, or jolts with intention, helping to immerse us in the characters’ fluctuating mental states. The production design deserves praise for its ability to evoke both a grounded reality and a distorted dreamscape. Nava also brings a retro, analog flair to the film’s visual language, which gives this film a distinct texture.

That said, Snorkeling is not an easy watch. While its chaos is intentional, the fragmented narrative can feel overwhelming, even alienating. At times, it’s hard to know where you are in the story—or if there’s a story at all. It often feels like you’re caught in someone else’s vivid, unstable dream. For some viewers, this will be exhilarating. For others, it may be exhausting. The film demands a certain mood and mindset; without that, it’s easy to feel disconnected or confused by the rapid tonal and narrative shifts.

Still, Snorkeling is a bold, deeply personal debut that dares to push boundaries. Emil Nava’s transition from music video director to feature filmmaker is anything but tentative—this is a film made with conviction and vulnerability. It won’t be for everyone, but those willing to sit with its chaos will find moments of beauty, pain, and truth.