(1.5 / 4)
Adrift suffers from a misguided narrative structure, which diminishes a captivating true story about love and survival into a slog of dull and saccharine moments.
There is a scene towards the beginning of Baltasar Kormákur’s romantic drama Adrift in which Sam Claflin’s Richard Sharp is on his first date with Tami Oldham (Shailene Woodley) and he is asked to describe why he has devoted his life to sailing. After providing an impassioned explanation about how sailing fosters this intense feeling about being connected with nature, Richard apologizes and states that his answer must have sounded incredibly cheesy. This line proves to be prophetic regarding the film, as despite having all the makings of an epic romantic adventure, the amazing true story manages to come off as inauthentic and monotonous, due entirely to a costly narrative decision.