Staying Adrift

Good day my friends! And to all my new avid readers I say welcome as well to you my new friends! It has been a busy week for me lately. There has been good things and some bad but hey thats life! And life should be an adventure don't you think? Every moment of our lives the good and the bad is supposed to teach us something, to give us courage and strength that we didn't know we had. When we are challenged I have found is where we usually find these things and grow as human beings. My hope is that one day others will look back at what I have done and say "What an interesting life! We need to tell his story so that others can be inspired by it!" The stories that come from true events are why I always liked movies based on others lives. They inspire you and instil such emotion in you that in a way you can relate. That's why this week I have chosen such a movie. Now at this time of the year when we are in the summer movie season full of superheroes, space battles, super spies, dinosaurs and thieves it is not too often that we get a serious drama. Sometimes it happens but for the most part there is always tons of sequels filled with action and comedy all vying for your box office dollar. This week the movie we are reviewing is the biographical action drama Adrift. This movie was directed by Baltasar Kormakur who also produced it. He is known for the directing and producing movies such as 2 Guns and Everest. This movie stars Shailene Woodley(Divergent) as Tami Oldham and Sam Claffin(Me Before You) as Richard Sharp. So let us take a look at this tale of survival on the seas, hopefully we don't get sea sick!

Tami Oldham(Woodley) is a free spirit, going where ever life takes her. Having been on the move since she finished high school she is always looking for her next adventure never staying one place for too long. At this moment in her life she finds herself in Tahiti working on the boat docks earning money to fund her next adventure. It is here thats he meets Richard Sharp(Claffin) a fellow free spirit, British naval academy drop out who has been sailing the seas for a while now on a boat he built himself. The two instantly click from their first date and have found in each other their soul mate. They create many memories together and plan to have many adventures together. When some old friends of Richards from London ask him to sail their boat for them to San Diego in exchange for $10,000 and two first class plane tickets back to Tahiti. It is an offer too good to pass up but will not take it unless Tami wants to come along. She is a little hesitant to go as she is originally from San Diego and don't want to go home yet but goes along with Richard. The couple set sail and are enjoying themselves on their latest adventure, even getting engaged. But little do they realize that their latest adventure is about to become more challenging and dangerous! With a storm on the horizon they decide the best course to take to avoid in hopes it will pass by them. They are soon thrust into the heart of one of the most devastating hurricanes in recorded history hurricane Raymond.  Their boat is thrown around knocking Tami unconscious. She awakens to find the boat in ruins and Richard clinging to the lifeboat in the sea and badly injured. Adrift on the sea with no hope of rescue Tami summons the courage, strength and determination within herself to fix the boat enough to sail it and take care of an injured Richard. With the days passing, food /water running out,Richard getting worse and hallucinations setting in as rescue seems improbable. She keeps going to save herself and the only man she has ever loved in this story of the resilience of the human spirit and power of love.

Well? What do you think my friends? Does that sound like a movie you would be interested in seeing? I know from reading that I would see it if I hadn't already. But lets take a look at this movie a little closer before we make our final judgement on it. Firstly I thought this was a great story, and to have the true events and the book written by Tami Oldham to go on it could be fantastic! And while the story was good and the screenplay was decent I felt there could have been a little more story added here to put it over the top. I loved the resilience of of Tami in this movie fighting to survive. The movie started out after the storm with Tami searching for Richard and than sent us into a flashback to how they met and led to where they are now. It jumped back and forth between the present of them on the boat adrift trying to survive and the past telling their story that eventually less to where we first came in. It is an interesting way to do the movie and other movies have had success with this formula. It did work here for this story but I do feel it jumped around a little too much. I would have loved to get more details on the characters though. The performances were okay! Sam Claffin did a great job and Shailene Woodley did a pretty decent job herself. All in all a pretty fair movie that runs at 1hr and 35min. There were parts that dragged and I was looking at my watch but it did not distract me from too much from the story. That is why I am going this movie a 6.9 on the Justin Scale Of Movies which just puts it on my Pick-It List of movies to see in the theatre. It had a good story and a surprise ending. That is a wrap here for my latest movie review my friends. Remember to support the hard working people who help make these films and others and check them out in the theatre and not illegally download them. So keep that popcorn freshly popped for me and save me a good seat because I will be seeing you again at the movies!