Drowning Dry invites you in with the soft lull of a family vacation—sunlight glinting off lake water, idle conversations, routine warmth—and slowly submerges you into something murkier. What begins as a gentle, naturalistic drama soon reveals its more elusive intent, playing tricks with time and memory, shifting perspectives just enough to keep you off balance. When you realize something is wrong, the water's already in your lungs.

The term "dry drowning" refers to a rare, delayed respiratory failure that can occur after water is inhaled, even if the person seems fine at first. It's a chilling metaphor the film deploys both literally and emotionally. A near-tragedy involving a child at the lake serves as the film's narrative fulcrum, but rather than revolving neatly around it, the story dissolves outward—memories fold in on themselves, truths become slippery, and grief bubbles up in unexpected ways.

The film also wrestles with masculinity—what it means to be strong, protect, and provide. One of the husbands is a fighter, literally—a muscular, UFC-type who wears his strength on his body but lacks financial stability. The other is a softer physique but works in finance and offers economic security. The contrast between them plays out in numerous ways on this shared vacation. They each embody different archetypes of manhood, and the film subtly interrogates how those identities and their respective relationships hold up when crisis tests their limits.

Rather than offering neat catharsis, Drowning Dry settles into a disorienting emotional space where roles unravel, and nothing returns to normal. It's affecting and atmospheric, a film that seeps in gradually.