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DRIFT (2024)
Director: Anthony Chen Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Alia Shawkat, Ibrahima Ba, Honor Swinton Byrne, Zainab Jah, Suzy Bemba, Vincent Vermignon MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:33 Release Date: 2/9/24 (limited); 2/16/24 (wider) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 8, 2024 Drift seems to be telling one story at first, as a woman in Greece attempts to avoid drawing attention to herself, wanders the streets and beaches looking for food and money, travels by fitting in with various tourists, and sneaks away each night to a little rocky alcove by the sea, where she keeps her meager belongings and sleeps on a mattress made of filled plastic bags. Is Jacqueline (Cynthina Erivo) one of many undocumented migrants who populate this city? Has she simply fallen upon hard financial times and somehow found herself here? Who is this woman, and what has she experienced to end up in this position? The film, written by Susanne Farrell and Alexander Maksik (based on the latter's novel A Marker to Measure Drift), has a very specific story to tell, but in the mystery of Jacqueline's past and identity, it opens itself up to a larger swathe of experience and empathy. Yes, we eventually learn what happened to Jacqueline and why she has made herself into a kind of ghost in this place, but her current situation lines up with those whom people and society often ignore, want to forget about, or actively judge or persecute. Jacqueline may or may not be a migrant or unhoused or alone with no one to help her, but whatever the particulars of how she ended up living like this in a foreign land, her existence is one that people and society often want to overlook or condemn. In Erivo, this story has an immediate channel for eliciting sympathy. Her performance gives us qualities that are instantly recognizable, even if we only have some vague impression—either right or wrong—about who Jacqueline is and from where she comes. The mystery almost becomes a litmus test for the audience. What notions and assumptions do we bring to this character? She is a Black woman, but does that necessarily mean she originally comes from another country? She has no job, no apparent source of income other than doing things for tourists, and no permanent shelter, but does that actually define anything about her character? Such are the questions we ask while watching Jacqueline move around the city, ask beachgoers for money in exchange for foot massages, sneak aboard hotel shuttles and tour group buses to go back and forth between the cavern where she sleeps and the heart of the area's activity, and otherwise try to simply survive under such uncertainty. By the time the character's past begins to become clearer, we also have to ask ourselves if different answers would change what we think of her. The story here is mostly formless, which is, perhaps, the only way to reflect Jacqueline's current circumstances. She does just wander the streets—looking for ways to make a little money, spending it on necessities (In one scene, that includes sitting at a café to drink coffee, almost as a way to feel like an ordinary part of this place), trying to find scraps of anything that might tide her over or make her feel just a little more comfortable. That's the course of her day, and at night, she washes the clothes on her back—a skirt and shirt, which seems to be only outfit she has—and falls asleep to the sounds of the sea. The next morning, it's right back to the same routine, occasionally hindered by a rude restaurant owner or a man (played by Ibrahima Ba) of African origin who desperately wants to talk to her for reasons she can only imagine as a potential threat. Is her reaction simply the pragmatism of worrying about stranger following her, or does it come from something else? Jacqueline's history arrives in short flashbacks, in dreams as she falls asleep and in visions as she takes some time to pause among her routine. Since so much of the theme and plot of the film depends upon the gradual revelation of this information, what can be said is that Jacqueline essentially had two lives. One was her own, in a place other than Greece (One of the more pointed but subtle things we learn in this instance is how the people closest to her in that life move on with theirs, despite knowing something happened to her). The other is with her family in a third place, where politics and economic troubles—not unlike the ones Jacqueline is now experiencing—arrive at the family's home. The core of the story, beyond learning about Jacqueline, becomes her tenuous friendship with Callie (Alia Shawkat), a local tour guide, who originally came from the United States but is now kind of stuck in Greece after a marriage went sour. The two talk and bond, although Jacqueline makes up a story about herself because of the potential legal and psychological perils the truth could bring. Trust is not easy for Jacqueline at the moment. When the climax of her story—both in the past and the present—arrives, the power of that moment—apart from how Erivo's whole performance comes to feel like a build-up to the release of so much pain—is that Jacqueline decides to say what she says on her own terms. It is a potent scene, to be sure, because we know exactly what we need to know about Jacqueline even before it arrives. That's thanks in large part to Erivo, who communicates so much without words and with subtle bits of behavior, but it's also because Drift provides such an intimate sense of living in continual uncertainty, doubt, and fear—for whatever reason might be behind it. Copyright © 2024 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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