70
Despite predictability, flashback hopping and cheesy lines, Adrift takes viewers on a trip through beautiful cinematography and gut-wrenching performances that are worth seeing.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
50
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
The chronological back-and-forth diffuses the dread and suspense — the feeling of desperate uncertainty implied by the title — that might have made for a more intense, more memorable yarn.
75
Entertainment Weekly by Chris Nashawaty
It’s all done expertly and with an unexpectedly deft sleight-of-hand twist in the homestretch that proves once again that Kormakur is the kind of overachieving director that one pigeonholes at their own risk. He has a knack for making the familiar feel more surprising than it is.
67
Adrift is told with an inimitable sense of place and a rare attention to detail, both of which help to ensure that we never lose sight of the terror at hand. When all else fails, which it sometimes does, Woodley is there to right the ship.
67
The A.V. Club by Jesse Hassenger
Given the sweetly dull-witted relationship at its center, Adrift threatens to bog itself down with the endless intercutting back and forth in time. But the movie has a little more up its sleeves, narratively speaking, than first appears, and Kormákur converges the two timelines effectively.
60
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
If the part of the film devoted to endurance lacks the harrowing power of, say, 2013's All Is Lost, it at least gives Woodley the opportunity to convincingly sink her teeth into a plum dramatic lead role as a young woman fighting fiercely against the forces of nature (instead of a dystopian civilization).
63
Chicago Tribune by Michael Phillips
They never quite got the script right, but director Kormakur toggles well enough. And Woodley sees it through.
70
Woodley gives herself over to the physical and spiritual reality of each scene. She knows how to play an ordinary woman who’s wild at heart, and she keeps you captivated, even when the film itself is watchable in a perfectly competent, touching, and standard way.
55
There’s a choppiness in the overall dramatic pull that — despite the surface appeal of the stars and Kormákur’s and cinematographer Robert Richardson’s visuals — keeps Adrift from making true waves.
50
As he did with his "Everest" cast, Kormákur draws a strong, pathos-rich performance from Woodley, filled with moments of her character confronting her own mortality and looking back on safe choices not made. It’s solid drama, but also very slow going.