Drift

Jacqueline Kamara (Cynthia Erivo) is a woman apparently without a past or future, and not much of a present. She is staying on a Greek island, living in a cave, and getting by on whatever scraps she can scavenge, as well as a small amount of cash from massaging the feet of tourists on the beach. She appears to be a refugee, which indeed she is, but all our assumptions about how she arrived at this predicament (which we have to make in the absence of any information) are eventually shown to be baseless.

Erivo is terrific as a woman traumatised by her past and barely able to survive, yet also remarkably determined to keep going. A past friendship has been of no benefit, but a new one, struck up with an American tour guide, gives some hope for a better life. It’s a superb film, which demands to be seen, and repays the time you give to it. Wendy Ide in The Guardian describes it as “quietly mesmerising.”

SYNOPSIS:
A young Liberian refugee named Jacqueline who has barely escaped her war-torn country to a Greek island. She offers massages to tourists in exchange for one or two euros to battle her hunger, while her daily struggle for survival keeps the memories that haunt her at bay. She meets an unmoored tour guide and the two become close as they each find hope in the other.
 

Details
Run time: 1h 33 mins
Certificate: 15
Director: Anthony Chen
Writer: Susanne Farrell, Alexander Maksik
Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Alia Shawkat, Honor Swinton Byrne

Country: United States, Greece, France, United Kingdom
Genre: Drama
Language: English, Greek