Adrift

2018 survival love story

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Two sailing lovers find themselves adrift for over 40 days after a hurricane slaps them around.

Don't read this if you don't want the movie spoiled for you. I'm going to spoil things right off the bat.

I laughed at the most inappropriate time in this movie, something that always makes an experience in a semi-crowded small theater more fun for everybody involved. This laugh came during a twisty revelation in which it's discovered that the boyfriend, who was thought to have been unrealistically saved and dragged on the boat in a feat of near-superwoman heroics earlier, was never really there at all. Earlier, there was some product placement where the woman has found some Skippy peanut butter and is feeding it to the guy with her fingers. Once we learn that her boyfriend was never found at all, we get a montage of scenes from earlier where the boyfriend has been digitally erased. Or maybe they were just reshot without the boyfriend in them. And it shows that peanut butter scene again where Shailene Woodley is eating peanut butter and talking to a figment of her imagination.

And that's when I laughed.

It was the fault of the part of me that really should have been an advertising executive. An advertising slogan immediately came to mind: "Skippy--the only peanut butter to share with your hallucinations." And maybe it's because it was after midnight, but that made me laugh. I thought of turning to share the slogan with the woman sitting next to me, but I don't think she would have been amused.

Now I'm not even sure I'm all that amused.

This movie is half Hollywood romance and half Hollywood survival story. For me, the latter worked better than the former. Tami Oldham, a character based on the real Tami Oldham, proves herself to be a resourceful, strong human being who manages to survive as nature tries to kill her. That's not an easy conflict to survive. I like these person vs. nature conflict stories usually, but there are enough of these people-stranded-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean stories to last for a long time. This one doesn't really bring anything new to the table. The movie magic used to put the viewer on that boat with Woodley works really well, and the disaster money shots are visually and aurally exciting enough. As this bounces between the burgeoning romance and the post-hurricane attempts at survival, I found myself getting a little bored though. Anytime Skippy wasn't on the screen, I kind of lost interest. I didn't know anything about Oldham's story going in, but the revelation wasn't as revealing. It was set up a little too much earlier when the guy, played well by the hunky Sam Claflin, explains what happens when a person is sailing for extended periods of time. I figured his mention of "hallucinations" and not necessary the "good kind" was foreshadowing. And while she's a strong female taking care of business all by herself, the movie seems to be saying that she needed the guy to be around in some form to keep her going. I'm not sure how I felt about that though it did add some depth to the romance.

As a huge Tom Waits fan, I liked hearing the use of two of his songs here. The first was a cover of "I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love with You," a song that was also later sung by both characters on the boat. The second was at the end, one of his weepers that is capable of making any moment more poignant. I thought about leaning over to make sure the woman sitting next to me knew that it was a Tom Waits song, but I didn't think this was the best movie to mansplain something during.