Drift, review

Drift

UK release: 29 March 2024

Director: Anthony Chen

Review by Drew Chateau

Drift stuns its viewers with calming, delightful scenes of an idyllic Greek island, juxtaposed delicately with the main character Jacqueline’s [Cynthia Erivo] destitute living circumstances.

The introduction of the spontaneous bond Jacqueline forms with benevolent American tour guide Callie [Alia Shawkat], leads to the reveal of Jacqueline’s unspeakable pain, and Callie’s past struggles that have led to both avoiding their original countries. Despite the gorgeous intrigue created by each protagonist’s story, portrayal and the joint on-screen chemistry, Anthony Chen’s (2023) drama leaves too much unsaid, attempting to rest the heavy burden of storytelling in the hands of Jacqueline’s’ trauma. At the end, one feels the weight of the neglected storylines, which steal the story’s momentum and lay the audience adrift in the vast ocean of potential.

The screenplay, co-written by Alexander Maksik and Susanne Farrell, is an adaptation from Maksik’s (2013) book, A Marker to Measure Drift. The 93-minute drama mostly silently watches Jacqueline, a Brit seemingly stranded on a Greek island, penniless and alone. Each scene relies on the unsaid emotion portrayed by Erivo for context clues, and too-short flashbacks into her previous life. Comfortable London days with her middle-class white girlfriend [Honor Swinton Byrne], and days spent in her ministerial family home in Liberia amidst a civil war, are a far cry from her current reality. Now, Jacqueline spends her days avoiding power-hungry police officers and almost pleading to offer foot massages to strangers so she can eat. We assume something has drawn her away from her family and friends to explain why none of these characters have resurfaced, and whilst the questions raise intrigue and mystique, they leave us frustrated when they are not answered at the film’s climax. 

This is a constant throughout Drift––many scenes with world-building and story-thickening potential are abandoned in favour of a build-up to Jacqueline’s trauma, after which the film sags. Rather than exploring how exactly Jacqueline arrived wherever she is, what year it is, who the man is [Ibrahima Ba] that Jacqueline keeps encountering, what the aftermath of his run-in with the police, and why is there such disdain toward Jacqueline? It leaves a few questions: is it just anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-blackness, and why is Callie so drawn to her? Eventually we learn, Jacqueline’s white knickers employed as a slightly unconvincing MacGuffin, why she is so standoffish and disjointed from society – but this is at the expense of further expansion in any other area.

Without a doubt, Erivo is fantastic, and she must be. Chan’s vision rests on the power she evokes, bringing Jacqueline’s trauma to light as she stutters through raw emotion, retelling the unimaginable. Skawkat brings a natural confidence that breathes life into Callie, and their chemistry feels natural, which aggrandises the disappointment that the onscreen relationship was snipped before it could truly bud. 

Given the multiple options for story development, one wonders what lay behind Chen and Maksik’s decision to allow Jacqueline’s horrific trauma to monopolise the plot. Drift, whilst it could have been identified as a more devastating Call Me By Your Name, especially as the film shares the same producers, it aligns more with a colourful Malcolm & Marie. It attempts to draw the audience’s attention through a self-serving lust for Black trauma, reminiscent of the shallow fixation on aspects of Black culture and pain that de-centres Black autonomy and recognition. 

When coupled with the stripping of both women’s voices – literally and figuratively – Drift suggests that Black and female pain is the only thing worth listening to. Ironically, a film led by two women neglects their dialogue, backstory and even personality, instead snipping in b-roll of them often laughing at a joke unknown to the viewer. Drift wanted to achieve an atmospheric feel that is best achieved through the script. We watch a caricature of women in pain, with their smiles and laughter hiding their semi-cooked friendship.

It is disappointing that there were many great themes teased throughout the film. Chen, Erivo and Shawkat are highly qualified to explore the proximity of white people to Black trauma, which is ultimately overshadowed by their inaction. Or how the universal Black experience manifests as solidarity against police megalomania, though self-preservation prevails. Rather than a writing failure or oversight, perhaps the script is a cautionary tale against Black and female stories being used as tools for storytelling, and not engaged as the authors of their own story. 

This calming drama highlights the lingering effects of unspeakable trauma, but also the ramifications of muting the subjects of that very tale. Drift is a casualty of Black trauma, which we are quite frankly, tired of seeing. Black trauma is not in itself an interesting plot point anymore.