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Parents' Guide to

Adrift

By Jeffrey Anderson, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 14+

Intense survival-romance story is cheerless and clichéd.

Movie PG-13 2018 120 minutes
Adrift Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 12+

Based on 11 parent reviews

age 11+

This title has:

Great messages
Great role models
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking
age 10+

Adrift is a beautiful movie!!

Adrift is the true story of a woman named Tami, who survived a major hurricane and this movie tells her incredible story of survival. Tami is played by Shailene Woodley and let me tell you, Shailene is Oscar worthy in this and Sam Claflin plays Tami’s fiancé and nobody plays pain better than Sam Claflin. Balthasar Kormakur is the director of the movie and he does an amazing job capturing Tami’s story and The cinematography in Adrift is absolutely stunning and if Adrift doesn’t get an Oscar nomination for Cinematography it will be a major sin, cause this movie is stunningly beautiful.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (11 ):
Kids say (12 ):

Switching back and forth between a drippy romance before the storm and intense amounts of anguish and suffering after it, this based-on-a-true-story survival movie is overly reverent. Actors love movies like Adrift because they can use their most intense, high-velocity emotional ammunition; Oscar voters tend to love them, too, and awards frequently follow. Woodley, who also produced, first appears lithe and muscular, and then later, wasted and gaunt; she also uses makeup to make herself look sun-baked and destroyed. Her commitment is impressive, so it's too bad that her co-star, Claflin, is so lackluster and that the resulting movie is so glum and dispiriting.

Director Baltasar Kormakur fails to use the flashbacks or flash-forwards to find any resting ground for the story (which is set in the '80s); it thrums at a constant, wearying high pitch. The score's wailing string section doesn't help. Worse, the screenplay uses what could be easily described as a cheat, especially for a movie that wears its "true story" credentials on its sleeve (it ends with real-life footage). It feels as if it's so constrained with the effort of honoring the tale's real subjects -- whose actual story is indeed remarkable -- that it can't do anything but recycle the genre's clichés.

Movie Details

  • In theaters: June 1, 2018
  • On DVD or streaming: September 4, 2018
  • Cast: Shailene Woodley , Sam Claflin
  • Director: Baltasar Kormakur
  • Inclusion Information: Female actors
  • Studio: STX Entertainment
  • Genre: Drama
  • Run time: 120 minutes
  • MPAA rating: PG-13
  • MPAA explanation: injury images, peril, language, brief drug use, partial nudity and thematic elements
  • Last updated: June 20, 2023

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