Starring: Sam Claflin, Shailene Woodley, Grace Palmer, Jeffrey Thomas, Elizabeth Hawthorne
Director: Baltasar Kormákur
Release date: 29th June 2018
It’s 1983 and Tami Oldham (Shailene Woodley) is in Tahiti on a working holiday. She soon has a chance encounter with a very charming guy called Richard (Sam Claflin) and the pair quickly start seeing each other. Richard has his own boat and Tami has a strong passion for the sea and sailing. One day they bump into some old friends of Richard’s, who ask him if he would be interested in sailing their boat, The Hazana, from Tahiti to San Diego for them. They also offer return plane tickets for the pair as an incentive. They jump at the chance and are full of excitement for the journey ahead. They embark on their long, perilous journey but catastrophe soon strikes, in the form of Hurricane Raymond. It’s unlike anything the pair could possibly have been prepared for and it hits them for six..
The film tells the true story of Tami Oldham and her fiancé, Richard Sharp, and their 4,000 mile journey from Tahiti to San Diego, which resulted in them getting caught in a category-four tropical hurricane. For 41 days, the boat drifted, surrounded by floating debris. Tami eventually was able to document her story in her book, “Red Sky in Mourning: A True Story of Love, Loss, and Survival at Sea”. It was then later translated into eight different languages, and published in fifteen countries before becoming a movie adaptation.
You always know with a story about true events that it will hit home a lot more than something that’s been made up. Real people went through these turmoils and there is a huge sense of empathy for their plight. Not knowing about the story previously also helped when watching the film. Sometimes it’s better not to know anything about the events themselves. Tami was only 24 years old and Richard, 33 when the events unfolded on that fateful day.
A love story at its heart but also one of survival, ‘Adrift’ is a really great movie, which I really enjoyed. Sam Claflin and Shailene Woodley seem to have great chemistry and at times it almost feels like you’re on the boat with them. Definitely one to watch, make sure you see it on the big screen.
Overall: 8/10
