In the bonus track of the DVD of "Adrift," the film artists described the film as a combination love story and a tale of survival. Filmed on the open scenes during a 4-5-week shoot and working 12-14 hours a day, "Adrift" has a great look and feel for the overwhelming powers of nature. For producer and leading actress Shailene Woodley, the goal was "to draw you in and take you on a journey." Without a doubt, it was a competent film depicting a true story, but it was also drawn out and labored in the the structure.
The love story of Tami Oldham and Richard Sharp was presented in a way that seemed a little too idyllic and perfect for two souls who had experienced a rough childhood and taken to the sea on an odyssey in search of their souls. Tami came from a broken family in which she was withheld contact from her beloved father. Richard's mother hanged herself when he was age seven. The principal metaphor used in the film was "crossing the horizon" with the feeling of being "reborn" on the limitless ocean. In this regard, the characters get exactly what they desired in the face of Hurricane Raymond when they were in the middle of the Pacific.
Richard and Tami met and fell in love in beautiful Tahiti. When they were offered $10,000 to take the schooner Hazaña from Tahiti to San Diego as a favor to a couple of Richard's friends, they agreed to take on the task. The characters joke about the Hazaña as this "big, bad boat." But they had never experienced anything like the forces of nature that crippled the big, bad Hazaña and led to 41 days adrift.
The film almost would have had a quasi documentary style were it not for the constant flashbacks that interrupted the flow of the action. There were so many jittery jump cuts to the past that the film lost steam in its pacing. The single flashback that had a payoff was the recreation of the intensity of Class Four hurricane that knocked Richard overboard and sent Tami into a frenzied survival mode. There was a subtle manipulation of the viewer in terms of the "mirage" experience that is often the result of being lost at sea for a long period. In the case of this film, it was Tami's mirage that the filmmakers wanted to use as the core experience that sustained her through the forty-one days. In her struggle to cross the horizon, the picture painted by the filmmakers was not as pretty as Tami had imagined before the voyage of the Hazaña.
The love story of Tami Oldham and Richard Sharp was presented in a way that seemed a little too idyllic and perfect for two souls who had experienced a rough childhood and taken to the sea on an odyssey in search of their souls. Tami came from a broken family in which she was withheld contact from her beloved father. Richard's mother hanged herself when he was age seven. The principal metaphor used in the film was "crossing the horizon" with the feeling of being "reborn" on the limitless ocean. In this regard, the characters get exactly what they desired in the face of Hurricane Raymond when they were in the middle of the Pacific.
Richard and Tami met and fell in love in beautiful Tahiti. When they were offered $10,000 to take the schooner Hazaña from Tahiti to San Diego as a favor to a couple of Richard's friends, they agreed to take on the task. The characters joke about the Hazaña as this "big, bad boat." But they had never experienced anything like the forces of nature that crippled the big, bad Hazaña and led to 41 days adrift.
The film almost would have had a quasi documentary style were it not for the constant flashbacks that interrupted the flow of the action. There were so many jittery jump cuts to the past that the film lost steam in its pacing. The single flashback that had a payoff was the recreation of the intensity of Class Four hurricane that knocked Richard overboard and sent Tami into a frenzied survival mode. There was a subtle manipulation of the viewer in terms of the "mirage" experience that is often the result of being lost at sea for a long period. In the case of this film, it was Tami's mirage that the filmmakers wanted to use as the core experience that sustained her through the forty-one days. In her struggle to cross the horizon, the picture painted by the filmmakers was not as pretty as Tami had imagined before the voyage of the Hazaña.