Drift
Directed by Anthony Chen
Written by Susanne Farrell and Alexander Maksik
Starring Cynthia Erivo and alia shawkat
Runtime: 93 min.
Unread
In theaters in New York February 9 and nationwide February 16

by Daniel Pecoraro, Staff Writer

Drift should come with a few warnings. It’s a film that shows a life unmoored after witnessing the murder of one’s whole family. It’s full of PTSD-induced flashbacks. It’s not for emetophobes. There’s an extended foot massage scene (that warning may just be for me specifically).

But the trauma of Drift shouldn’t define it, as ultimately it’s a film about intimacy cutting through fear and precarity, and how the kindness of strangers need not come with strings attached. Based on the novel A Marker to Measure Drift by Alexander Maksik (who also co-wrote the screenplay) the film’s main focus is on Jacqueline (Cynthia Erivo), a Liberian expat in a touristy Greek town on the beach. Jacqueline’s been sleeping in a cave, sand-filled plastic bags for a mattress. She’s scrounging for other tourists’ leftovers and stealing sugar packets from cafes. Her sole source of income is giving the aforementioned massages using pilfered olive oil. 

But more than anything else, she is resolutely alone — trying to blend in with the tourists, avoid the eye of the police and the restaurateurs, and at times evade Ousmane (Ibrahima Ba), an African migrant selling giraffe statues. (There’s an undercurrent of “migrant” vs. “expat” in this film, with Jacqueline avoiding the ogling Black merchants and tentatively accepting Ousmane’s assistance throughout the film. After what Jacqueline’s been through, all her privilege — her politically connected family in Liberia, her London schooling, her white girlfriend (Helen, played in flashbacks by Honor Swinton Byrne) — has been obliterated.) All she has left is the contents of her backpack and a series of flashbacks and hallucinations.

After fleeing her cave and heading for some Greek ruins, Jacqueline meets Callie (Alia Shawkat), an American tour guide who “fell for this strong, machismo, Greek-god-type, got married, moved here, and fell into this.” Immediately, despite the lies (Jacqueline claims she has a husband) and the lies of omission (Callie and her husband split), there’s a bond between the two. Despite Jacqueline’s demeanor screaming “I can’t be seen this way,” Callie is there to help, seeming to seek nothing but companionship. Erivo and Shawkat have a potent chemistry together, anchored by two swimming scenes and the looks they engender in each other, looks not of anxiety or self-consciousness but of welcome and admiration. From the ruins, to the town, and everything in between, Callie tenderly draws Jacqueline out of her shell.

But for Callie to do this, the shell must be built, and Erivo (who co-produced the film, and co-wrote and sang the end-credits song with Laura Mvula) is a more-than-able architect. Between the main plotline and the many flashbacks, the contrast between Jacqueline’s life before the massacre and after, and the impact this event had on her life, is stark. Her depiction of life on the margins (in caves, under trees, in abandoned flats and secluded streets) packs an emotional wallop, especially when paired with Jacqueline remembering happier times smoking with Helen on a train back in England. 

Director Anthony Chen (in his English-language debut, stepping in for the late Bill Paxton), along with screenwriters Maksik and Suzanne Farrell, do well to tie all of the storylines and settings together, tracking Jacqueline’s path from comfort in England, to unease in Liberia, to trauma in Greece, and by the end a little closer to normal. But without Erivo and Shawkat, this two-hander would be lost. (And Ba’s portrayal of Ousmane deserves further recognition in the supporting role.) The end product of this collective work is an emotionally devastating, moving piece that will stick with me for a while.