FilmJudge - Adrift

REVIEW

Adrift
2006
Certificate: 15 | Runtime: 95 | Director: Hans Horn
Starring: Susan May Pratt, Richard Speight Jr., Niklaus Lange

When a group of old high-school friends meet up, they decide to take a weekend cruise on a luxury yacht. However, when the friends all go for a swim, nobody remembers to put the ladder down. As a result they become stranded in the water, unable to get back into the boat. Also, one of the group has left her baby on board, and it becomes a fight against exhaustion and desperation.

If there's a lesson that can be learned from Adrift, it's that true events don't necessarily make for good entertainment. What could have been a gripping and harrowing account of a struggle for survival, is instead the story of six people too stupid and selfish to accomplish the simplest of tasks.

You might think I'm being somewhat harsh, but such an overly simplistic and arrogant premise deserves severe criticism. It's clear from watching Adrift that all the film-makers wanted to do was construct basic backgrounds for their characters and then dump them in the water together as soon as possible, hoping this would be exciting. Unfortunately, they forgot to give most of the characters any likeable traits, and the tension they hoped to create never materialises.

It's difficult to point the finger at any of the performers in Adrift, because it's clear they don't have much to work with. Out of all of them it's only Amy (Pratt) who you feel remotely sorry for, and that's only because her baby ends up left on the boat and she has a fear of water. However, it's still a rather superficial sympathy we feel for her. Ultimately though, it's the writing that hampers the characters, because from the start until the time they go in the water, the only dialogue they exchange is impersonal smut - they very much behave like they're still in high-school.

When all the characters have left the boat, it's clear that Horn has trouble keeping the tension raised. Almost immediately, the characters begin to squabble and fight. This doesn't make the situation more tense, it just seems rather unnatural and somewhat irrational. Rather than work together to get back into the boat, they begin to throw blame around and shout and scream. One thing that doesn't help is that Horn doesn't show the passage of time properly, so even though they may have been in the water for hours, to the audience it seems like only a few minutes have passed.

But ultimately, what really kills the film is that the scenario seems so daft. I don't know how much of the film is based on the "true events" advertised in the opening titles, the fact remains that this story doesn't translate well onto film. What we see is six people behave like idiots for an hour, not thinking of doing obvious things (like standing on shoulders) to gain the extra couple of feet they need to get into the boat. For someone involved in such a situation I'm sure it's relatively terrifying, but to an outsider looking in the whole thing just looks silly.

I liked a few things about Adrift. I thought the way that Horn keeps the camera bobbing around once all the characters are in the water gives it a certain amount of realism. And I liked the fact that despite some moments that are meant to be emotional, it never tries to shamelessly tug at the heartstrings. However, there's no denying that it's one of those films where you can't become involved in the plight of the characters, and where you can see the mistakes they're making a mile away.

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