A true story about a couple who, after getting stuck at sea in their tattered sailboat because of a hurricane, attempt to survive and get back to safety
It starts out like a romantic film where Richard, a sailor by passion, meets Tami, a backpacker in Haiti. The two fall in love and Richard takes a lucrative offer of sailing a tiny yacht over 6,000 miles from Tahiti to San Diego. During the ambitious voyage, the couple are hit by a full blown hurricane and have to make it ashore.
The fact that Kormakur plays with genres, namely romance and adventure, works both, for the film and against it. Their dreamlike love story where they sail under magical skies hits all the right notes. But at its heart, Adrift is a survival tale. And somewhere, the filmmaker focuses on the intensity of their relationship a tad more than he does on their heroic struggle to stay alive and fight the elements. But there's a payoff to that exercise too, and will definitely take you by surprise.
Music by Volker Bertelmann elevates the carefully crafted frames by multiple Oscar-winning cinematographers, Robert Richardson. Shaileene Woodely delivers a power packed performance as a happy go lucky person who has to match the might of an entire ocean. A well-crafted tale of courage, resilience and love, the film sails through like a winner and is definitely recommended for those who like their romantic stories with some real adventure.