Accomplishing the rare feature of premiering two features this year, Anthony Chen’s Cynthia Erivo-led and -produced refugee drama Drift premiered at Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, then a few months later he debuted The Breaking Ice at Cannes Film Festival. The former was picked up by Utopia and now ahead of a February 9 release, the first trailer and poster have arrived.
Here’s the synopsis: “Jacqueline (Two-Time Academy Award nominee Cynthia Erivo), a young refugee, lands alone and penniless on a Greek island, where she tries first to survive and then to cope with her past. While gathering her strength, she begins a friendship with a rootless tour-guide (Alia Shawkat) and together they find the resilience to forge ahead.”
Michael Frank said in his Sundance review, “Coming from a script by Susanne Farrell and Alexander Maksik, Drift rarely individualizes its main character, quietly watching her as she struggles to survive. Chen hopes to craft a meditative drama. Instead he has made a shallow film, a catch-all of refugee stories that’s supposed to contain resonance. It’s a lump sum of experiences, sans uniqueness. It’s looking to be a powerful exercise, but in reality is a thin viewing, believing that all trauma is one in the same, underbaked in research and understanding.”
See the trailer below for the film also starring Alia Shawkat, Ibrahima Ba, Honor Swinton Byrne, Zainab Jah, Suzy Bemba, and Vincent Vermignon.
Drift opens on February 9, 2024.