But to her credit, Lively has never been afraid to try new genres. As with A Simple Favor, she could have coasted on her Gossip Girl reputation, playing a Serena van der Woodsen type for the rest of her career. She didn’t. Whatever you think of The Shallows , it was clearly an attempt by a actress who has nearly always been put in situations that highlight her beauty to carve out a new space for herself. The film itself is...fine. Either you love watching fake shark terrorize humans in the ocean or you don’t. But Lively, who is on screen the entire time, and alone for most of it, certainly carries the movie. Her next performance, All I See Is You, about a blind woman’s fraught relationship with her husband after she regains her sight, was a dismal box-office failure (it grossed, which barely made a dent in the $30 million budget), but Lively was praised by the few who did see it. ( David Ehlich at Indiewire called it “her finest performance” after A Simple Favor, and “the best indication that she possesses enough subtlety and self-awareness required to remain a star long after Gossip Girl is a distant memory.”)