Adrift (2020)
Review of Adrift (2020), directed by Baltasar Kormákur
When I was looking through Netflix for something to watch, I recognized this movie immediately in the sea of content. I remember when it came out, all the Divergent and Hunger Games fangirls were absolutely going wild, because Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin would be the crossover dream that all the fangirls would ever want. You could really tell that this movie’s demographic would be younger women judging from the story and the content, as well as the casting decisions.
I also will start off this review and say that this movie is one of those that’s probably very polarizing and you’re either going to love it or hate it. It’s not an exciting movie, there is very little romance, and the setting is entirely (outside of flashbacks) on the same boat and repetitive. We’ll get more into that later in this review.
With that being said, let’s get started, shall we?
Content
This movie is classified as a survival drama and is based off of a true story. In 1983, a woman and her fiancé set sail on a yacht Hazaña from Tahiti to San Diego. They never actually made it to San Diego, however, because they got caught in the middle of a tropical storm and the man was washed overboard and the woman was forced to find her way to Hawaii. She was left on the boat for forty-one days until she was found and given real food and water.
Now, you’re probably thinking, this sounds like a really boring movie plot if we’re just watching Shailene Woodley go mad and slowly starve on a yacht for an hour or two. And that’s why the film crew definitely made the decision to split the timeline so that we alternate from how the couple met to how Tami is now stranded on the boat. We then begin to think she’s finally losing it, as she imagines Richard on a floating dinghy and then drags imaginary-Richard up onto the boat and gives him food and water. She lives off of canned food, specifically in the movie a jar of peanut butter, some packed water, and by spearing fish.
This is a movie where it’s ideal to go in blind. If you know the backstory already, then you’re going to know how this ends. If not, then you’re going to be really bored with the content. Shailene Woodley does a great job as Tam, Richard (and Sam Claflin) tends to be a bit wooden and hollow as a character, but we’re forced to stick with Tami so we grow to like her as a character more.
What’s amazing to me is that they actually filmed this at sea. I imagine that was really motivated the actors, because they were far from land and out on the open water for the longest while before coming back to land after shooting. And that’s also major kudos because of how rough the ocean is, especially for filming. In a controlled environment, you can nail down the kinds of shots you want and practice as much as possible. On the ocean, however, you don’t have a large margin for error.
Overall Thoughts
It’s an okay movie at the end of the day. Like I said, you’re either going to love it or hate it and so when you’ve watched it through you can make your own decision. I personally did not like it since it wasn’t my cup of tea. I like survival films but I don’t particularly care for for romance (ironic, considering my love for Korean dramas), so it was merely okay. The lack of chronological order in the film works in this case best, because it keeps the suspense going and we don’t get too bored with just watching Woodley flail about on a boat. It can be a moving movie for some, but you definitely need to go in blind—I didn’t.
