Adrift review

ADRIFT:

SHAILENE WOODLEY KEEPS HERSELF AND THIS MOVIE AFLOAT!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

STX FILMS

The incredible true story comes to life in Adrift

            Director, Baltasar Kormákur (The Deep, 2 Guns, Everest) brings the true story of two lovers lost at sea together in the romantic survival drama, Adrift. My knowledge of the actual event is very limited, but I’ve seen plenty of survival films such as Cast Away, Life of Pi, and All is Lost to understand the basic plot structure for a film like this.

            The movie honors the people involved and celebrates sailor, Tami Oldham (Shailene Woodley-The Spectacular Now, The Divergent Series, The Fault in Our Stars) surviving the hurricane and finding her way to shore and Woodley’s performance as Tami truly shines. But as a survival movie, it’s just another film in the genre with hardly anything new added.

            The film follows a couple, Tami Oldham and Richard Sharp (Sam Claflin-Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Huntsman 1 and 2, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay: Parts 1 and 2) who set out on a journey across the ocean in 1983. However, their adventure is only just beginning as a massive hurricane hits their boat and, in the aftermath, Tami finds Richard badly injured, their boat is in ruins, and must find a way to save them both.

            The film also stars Jeffrey Thomas (Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, The Hobbit trilogy, The Dead Room) as Peter and Elizabeth Hawthorne (Young Hercules, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Outrageous Fortune) as Christine.

            Overall, Adrift is a familiar but decent survival movie, there really isn’t much you could do differently with its narrative and it’s predictable at times. Pacing wise, I’m not a big fan of how the story is told, most of it is told through flashbacks and they feel choppily put together, one minute you’ll have a bit of epic hurricane intensity and then it cuts back in time to the couple drinking wine, it’s really awkwardly paced, and I can best describe it as the first half of Batman Begins as the entire movie.

            So, what keeps this movie afloat (pun intended)? Shailene Woodley’s performance, watching her fight for survival at sea had me invested all the way through and like Jennifer Lawrence I don’t think I’ve ever seen her half-ass a performance, even in the mediocre Divergent franchise she makes an impression.

            Can’t say the same about Sam Claflin, not that he does a bad job or anything, but I found his character to be bland and he doesn’t have much of a story arc. He’s just the romantic support for Shailene Woodley and nothing more.

            Shailene Woodley’s performance alone is enough for me to recommend Adrift, you just have to get through its familiar narrative and awkward editing work. But if you’re a fan of survival films to begin with then Adrift might be up your alley even if there isn’t much new in there to help it stand out from all the other survival dramas out there.

            I don’t see Adrift being ranked up with All is Lost, Cast Away, or Life of Pi as one of the best movies about survival, but I’m glad I saw it once in the theater. The film has an engaging lead, beautiful production design, and it honored the real people who were adrift at sea.

            This is a perfectly serviceable movie with a few surprises and twists thrown in, so it’s not a completely rehashed survival flick. I just wished there was more added to the narrative to make it stand out, even the recent film, The Shallows blended survival drama with a shark movie and it worked.

            I’m really just nitpicking here, if you’re a fan of Shailene Woodley then you’ll probably enjoy this movie. It isn’t perfect, but it was entertaining and I’m glad to say that it wasn’t entirely predictable.

            Would I go Adrift again? Probably not, but I’m satisfied that I went Adrift the first time, take it for what it’s worth.