Go with the flow

Rupert 2021-12-27 08:01:56

Not very good at writing film reviews. Watching a movie is a private matter in itself, so let's write about a private viewing experience.

I racked my brains to rush due at school today, and I wanted to watch a movie to relax in the evening. In the movie that was released at the same time in the theater next to my home, I struggled with Breaking In, Book Club and Adrift, and finally bought tickets for Adrift. Actually, I don't really like movies like Survival by Disaster, but I like movies related to the ocean very much. It was the moment when the 40-foot big wave hits in the trailer that attracted me.

As a Chinese who has lived in the United States for six years, seeing this kind of movie still feels cultural shock.

The movie is a very American story. The whole story is shot from the perspective of the heroine. The hostess lives in San Diego. Her mother was pregnant when she was fifteen. When she was sixteen, her mother took her to a bar to celebrate. Her father rarely shows up. She was raised by her grandparents. She completed high school out of a sense of responsibility to her family ("I own her to finish high school"), not a plan for her own life. Asked her what occupation was at the port customs, she was stunned, and said with a smile that I would do anything that would allow me to get to the next place ("I do whatever takes me to the next place"). It is a relatively common middle- and lower-class life in the United States, where the family is fragmented, not as a whole, and barely graduated from high school, without higher education, life is based on interest.

For people like me who go to school step by step, are busy with graduation every day, worry about work, and entangled in the future house, car, child, kindergarten, the hostess is a romantic role that cannot be brought in, but is understandable.

The hostess is a vegetarian and likes surfing and traveling. Met the male owner who owns a small boat at the port. The two fell in love at first sight. The image of the male protagonist is relatively incoherent. His mother committed suicide when he was seven years old, and other backgrounds did not explain much.

The hostess was asked to drive a boat to San Diego. The hostess hesitated and decided to follow. She also wrote a postcard to her mother and said that I decided to go home and have a look. The screenwriter and director are quite good, and they belong to the type of show not tell. Instead of directly explaining a bunch of backgrounds, but subtly showing the influence of the character's background on the character's character in the details.

The following story is that two people spend a romantic period of time at sea, watching the sunset, proposing marriage, until they encounter a hurricane. How did the hostess drift on the sea for more than forty days after the storm, persisting until she was rescued. It's just that the director didn't use a straightforward narrative approach, but cleverly cut the two timelines before and after the storm. It's not an advanced technique, such as memory fragments, but it's still a bit more interesting than straightforward.

The heroine’s spiritual support is the injured hero she rescued from the sea, but the film finally revealed that it was just an illusion of the heroine. It's not a suspense film, there is no spoiler, no spoiler. The film gave a lot of hints from the beginning, it can be regarded as the director's show not tell. It's just easy to guess, and it's not too shocking when it's revealed, but it's just a bit sad.

There are several places of culture shock. In fact, I have been in the United States for many years, and it is not a shock. It just makes me feel "American" for a moment.

One is the American love for peanut butter. The theater burst into laughter.

One is that the hostess found a few bottles of wine and a few cigars in the cabin after the storm, and said excitedly, we are going to have a party ("We're gonna have a party!"). It has always been difficult for me to understand Americans’ obsession with the pure excitement caused by alcohol and drugs, because in my opinion, it is just the nihilistic pleasure of chemical substances that stimulate nerves. I was shocked when the hostess hugged the injured male lead and said dear you need to drink some water, and then put the bottle into the male lead’s mouth. Although the male protagonist is only imagined, doesn't alcohol make people dehydrated faster...

There is also a detail in the middle of the dialogue between the heroine and the imaginary hero. Both of them are very weak due to lack of food. The heroine refuses to go fishing in the sea, saying that I do not want other people (fish) to suffer ("I don't want others to suffer"). It was also a place that shocked me a little bit, thinking about the Shifang Luohan Temple opened to pregnant women during the earthquake. Whether the life or death is still in charge of the fish will not suffer? This may also be a point where the director wants to deliberately reflect the heroine's character. However, I personally find it a bit unnatural. It may also be because I am not a vegetarian and cannot understand similar ideas.

Including at the end, photos of the male and female protagonists of the real event (I have to say that the casting is really good, the male and female protagonists are super alike), and the video of the female protagonist, with the subtitles "Tami never stopped sailing" ("Tami never stopped sailing"), which also made me feel confused and admired. As a person who is greedy for life and fear of death, jumping from a parachute to jumping is my limit. I was stunned by a crazy driver running a red light when I was crossing the road. I was so scared that I would have a psychological shadow after crossing the road for half a year.

As far as the film is concerned, I think Samsung's level. It is very difficult to shoot a subject well if there are no plot fluctuations when a person is drifting on the sea for forty days. Disaster romance, I think the place for tearing is just right, and the disaster scene is reached. In addition, the long legs of the actress Shailene Woodley are so beautiful. I am also very dedicated. In the end, it was too bad for a thin adult to do it.

The title of the film is Adrift, which means floating literally, and it also means drifting with the flow. I think it’s a bit wrong to turn into a stormy hurricane, because in the latter half of the journey of the heroine, she was just drifting with the flow. The first half of the heroine’s life was just a small person. Some of them are easy to live with and have no sense of a place to live. Only at the moment when I saw the video of "Tami never stopped sailing", she was the anchor firmly anchored on the bottom of the sea, and I was the one who followed the current.

View more about Adrift reviews

Extended Reading
  • Kaya 2022-03-27 09:01:13

    The cute and sexy heroine and the English-sounding hero are familiar faces and cooperate well. The two of them book the venue late at night, and the stormy waves and the sea are really scary. It seems that it was the beginning of the American TV series Lost and it has always been like this. After the wreck at sea, I always miss Peanut Butter the most.

  • Coralie 2022-03-27 09:01:13

    Okay, but not so stormy

Adrift quotes

  • [from trailer]

    Tami Oldham: What's it like sailing out there on your own?

    Richard Sharp: Miserable.

  • [from trailer]

    Richard Sharp: Come sail with me.