Adrift Movie Review

Adrift (2018)

Watch the trailer
Written by: Tami Ashcraft (book), Aaron Kandell, Jordan Kandell, David Branson Smith (written by)
Directed by: Baltasar Kormákur
Starring: Shailene Woodley, Sam Claflin, Grace Palmer
Rated: PG-13

Plot
Based on the true story of a young couple sailing across the ocean in 1983 who encounter a hurricane and must figure out how to survive after the disaster leaves them nearly helpless.

Verdict
This is part love story, part survival movie, but it doesn't excel at either. I wanted to see the hurricane, and at a certain point the cutting back and forth around the storm just feels like a delay. Show us the storm. It made me want to re-watch Castaway to see how a survival movie can be done while keeping me interested. The in media res opening set later in the story is a cheap way to spice up the opening, and a surprise later in the movie just feels cheap. It's not a bad movie, but Castaway did survival better and The Perfect Storm did disaster better.
Skip it.

Review
This starts with a great scene where Shailene Woodley's character Tami wakes up in the hull of the boat disoriented. Then we flashback to the true beginning of the movie. This is the How We Got Here trope. It's an annoyance for me as it usually is a crutch to prop up weak opening scenes by adding intrigue. It works a little bit better in Adrift as the movie cuts before and after the hurricane, but even that began to wear thin as it felt like the movie was delaying the inevitable. I wanted to see the storm and began to question whether I would. At a certain point I began wondering how Castaway (2000) did it. How did it maintain interest without becoming boring? Adrift could take some notes. I also began considering my options for dinner and just how long this movie is.

This has a romantic angle. Richard and Tami meet and he asks her to sail away with him. Their story doesn't unfold in chronological order. We cut back and forth between pre and post storm. That nets some neat surprises in their relationship. Based on the trailer it seemed like an off the cut decision to sail, but they had been dating for a few months.
Tami was established quickly as a wanderer, looking for the next big experience. We get a few reasons as to why Richard sails, but I wanted more. He does it because he loves the ocean is too easy of an answer.

I mentioned Castaway, and while it's been a while since I've seen it one big point is that movie showed us how to survive in the wild. Adrift doesn't show us the details, and in a movie like this I want to know how they survived. There seems to be enough food on the boat, and one rainfall in the month they were stranded is apparently enough water. At one point I wondered if Tami was going to wake up from a dream and that she had bumped her head on a fall in the hull. There just aren't enough details, and because of that they never seem in real danger. Survival details would have added interest while also illustrating how dire the situation is.

There is a surprise towards the end that seems out of place for the tone this movie set. It's a cheap trick. To say any more would spoil it, but combined with the opening it's an effort to inject excitement into a script when it needs to work on the foundation. There are a couple of ways to achieve what was intended, and what we got is to try and pull the rug out from under the viewer.