Coram Deo ~

Looking at contemporary culture from a Christian worldview

Tag Archives: Shailene Woodley


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My Review of ADRIFT

Adrift, rated PG-13
***

Adrift is an intense film based on a true story. More than 90% of the movie was filmed at sea. It is directed by Baltasar Kormakur (Everest) and written by brothers Aaron Kandell and Jordan Kandell (Moana), and David Branson Smith, based on the book by Tami Oldham The True Story of Love, Loss and Survival at Sea.
The film is set in 1983. Tami Oldham, played by two-time Golden Globe nominee Shailene Woodley (Big Little Lies, The Descendants), has been enjoying taking it easy in the sun and surf for about five years since graduating high school and leaving home in San Diego. She currently has a job at a small marina in Tahiti. Tami meets the older 33-year-old Englishman, Richard Sharp, played by Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games) when he brings his boat into Tahiti. Richard’s passion is sailing and he actually built his own boat. You could say that both Tami and Richard have been adrift, without purpose, in their lives, going nowhere. But they soon develop a relationship. Richard mentions that he would like to sail around the world.
Then a wealthy couple offers to pay them $10,000 to sail a 44-foot yacht to San Diego. That would provide Tami and Richard enough money to sail for a full year. Soon, we see Tami and Richard take off in the yacht on the 4,000-mile journey from Tahiti to San Diego. As they travel, the film uses flashbacks to look at their growing romantic relationship.
About halfway into their journey in the Pacific Ocean, they run into Hurricane Raymond, a destructive category 5 hurricane. As they struggle to control the yacht in 145 knot winds, Richard is thrown overboard and Tami sustains a head injury. After some time, Tami sees Richard floating in the ocean clinging to the dinghy and is somehow able to rescue him. He has sustained significant injuries. All of this is shown in the film’s trailer.
The yacht is badly damaged and the communications no longer operate and there’s a food shortage. Their boat is not along any flight plans or shipping lanes. Will Tami be able to care for Richard and somehow get help or navigate them to safety? The odds are certainly against it.
We’ve seen stories like this in the past. The film may remind some of All is Lost, Robert Redford’s 2013 excellent one-man show at sea, or the story of Louis Zamporini as told in Laura Hillenbrand book Unbroken.
The cinematography by three-time Oscar winner Robert Richardson (Hugo, The Aviator, JFK), is superb, capturing beautiful sunsets and the beauty and the terror of the ocean. The CGI depicting the storm are also very realistic and frightening.
Content concerns include some adult language including abuses of God’s and Jesus’ names, a brief nude scene along with immodest clothing and the intense storm at sea. Themes include love, courage, survival, and perseverance.
Adrift is a well-acted film based on true events that will keep your interest. The storm, and aftermath, is realistically portrayed, which makes this film difficult to watch at times.


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MOVIE REVIEW ~ Snowden

snowdenSnowden, rated R
**

This film is directed by three-time Oscar winner Oliver Stone and is his twentieth feature film. It depicts events that took place between 2004 and 2013 in the life of whistleblower Edward Snowden, played by one of our better young actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The film is written by Stone and Kieran Fitzgerald and is based on the books The Snowden Files by Luke Harding and Time of the Octopus  by Anatoly Kucherena.

Earlier this summer in the same theater before a packed house that came to see Captain America: Civil War, jovial cries of “Team Captain” and “Team Iron Man” broke out. Before this film, I asked the only other person in the theater at the time what he thought – was Snowden a patriot or a traitor? He identified himself as a Libertarian and immediately and enthusiastically responded that Snowden was definitely a patriot. And that’s exactly the way Stone portrays Snowden in this film. If that is not your view of Snowden you might want to pass on this film.

It mixes dramatization with some historical footage and opens in a Hong Kong hotel with Snowden meeting Laura Poitras, (played by Oscar winner Melissa Leo), director of what would become the Oscar winning documentary Citizenfour, and Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, (played by Zachary Quinto – Spock in the latest Star Trek films). Snowden proceeds to share classified information about how the United States government is conducting illegal surveillance activities on their own citizens based on his knowledge of this from his time working in top-secret jobs in the United States government. This information is then published by the Guardian.

Among other things we find out that the government has the capability to turn on your laptop computer camera without you knowing it. Where I work, a number of people have for some time now placed a piece of tape over the camera because of just this fear.

In addition to Leo and Quinto, the film also features a number of other well-known actors such as Oscar winner Nicholas Cage, in his best performance role I’ve seen him in for some time, and the always good Oscar nominee Tom Wilkinson. The real Edward Snowden, still living in Moscow, also appears near the end of the film.

Though the film is clear about its intentions of seeing Snowden as a patriot, it should lead to some good conversations after seeing the film. For example, we ran into some friends afterwards who felt that the truth was probably somewhere in the middle between patriot and traitor.

Gordon-Levitt, who was solid but not spectacular in his role as Snowden, makes us feel that something is wrong with what he is seeing, especially as the real President Obama is shown campaigning against exactly what Snowden now knows is going on under his leadership. But the question about Snowden comes down to the decision he made to share the confidential National Security Agency documents publicly. Should he have first attempted to go through legitimate channels to enact change?  The film portrays his good intentions in being concerned about what he sees going on, and ultimately in exposing it, but it doesn’t address the harm (real or potential) he did to national security or government personnel working undercover. I see that as a weakness in the film.

The film was also slow, and even boring at times, too long at 134 minutes. Snowden’s relationship with live-in girlfriend Lindsay Mills, played by Shailene Woodley (from the Divergent films), which comprised big chunks of the film, added nothing to the overall Snowden story that people care about, and is another weakness of the film. The film does show one sex scene between the two. Mills, was a photographer and she was also the subject of many photographs shown in the film, including one of her nude. The film also included some adult language, a scene of Woodley teaching a pole-dancing class and a scene (no nudity) in a strip club. So Christian men, be prepared to divert your eyes into your popcorn box for a few scenes. The film is appropriately rated “R”.

Note:  let me know if Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s fake voice drove you crazy too.