Drift: A Story of Violence Against Women and the Relationships Between Women That Help Heal

Trigger Warning! Reference to war violence and sexual assault. This film is not recommended for people who are still healing from violent trauma.

Drift is a heartbreaking new film, adapted from a novel by Alexander Maksik, written by Susanne Ferrell and directed by Anthony Chen. It explores Jacqueline’s (Cynthia Erivo) life from privilege to unforeseen trauma that forces her migration to a foreign country with nothing but her clothes and the little she has in her purse.

Though some may imagine this story to be about what immigrants face, I saw it as more about the connection between women and how we rely on each other in times when the toxic masculine turns horrifically violent.

All alone

When we first meet Jacqueline, she is eking out an existence in a small beach town of Greece. We don’t know why she is there or even that she is a drifter of sorts there. We see her doing what she can to survive, including taking sugar packs as paltry sustenance from the restaurant she gets coffee in.

A small group of African men watch her when she’s in town and she does anything to avoid them, for reasons we don’t know at first. She sleeps in a cave by the beach, washing her clothes in the ocean with the small bar of soap she has.

When she notices the African men approaching beach goers to give foot massages, she picks up on that and is able to get some money from those who allow her to do it.

Utopia

Bit by bit, scenes of her past life get fed to us. We see she is an African woman, who’s father is a minister of the African government, who lives in London freely as a queer woman.

Her sleeping cave becomes threatened when she sees the African men on a boat just outside of it and she moves to find safety again.

where to go?

While sitting amongst some ancient ruins overlooking the sea, she meets Callie (Alia Shawkat), a tour guide educating a group of tourists about the ruins. Callie is outgoing, curious and interested in knowing Jacqueline’s story.

Jacqueline is hesitant, but enjoys being able to talk to someone who finally seems trustworthy. Callie picks up on the fact that Jacqueline is alone, and doesn’t have the husband she claims to be there with. They create a friendship of sorts, limited by Jacqueline’s trauma and trust issues.

Though Callie continues, bit by bit, to get to know Jacqueline and earn her trust, there is still a wall built by Jacqueline, that is hard to penetrate. Callie is always respectful of her boundaries, but feels she can’t help Jacqueline without her permission.

As the two women slowly bond, Callie finds out the horrors that Jacqueline has faced and becomes the only one that Jacqueline can trust. Will Jacqueline be able to allow a friendship to blossom, or will her pride and fear break her away from the only kindness and opportunity for healing she’s had since the incident?

in all honesty…

Utopia

Drift is a slow moving, beautifully portrayed film about the necessity of women’s friendships when the world they know is shattered by violence and the toxic masculine.

Cynthia Ervio is one of the most spectacular actors of our time. She embodied Jacqueline with earnest focus, as she has in every one of her performances, and I cannot understand why she has not yet received an Oscar win (though I have a few guesses).

Ervio transforms into Jacqueline so vividly, that we are able to see and feel, at all times, how she feels. From her nervousness, hunger, sense of being lost, and how these new, chaotic emotions wreak havoc in her newly traumatized body. Jacqueline clearly hasn’t had time to process all that encompasses a person’s experience surrounding having survived physical and emotional terrorism.

Though the screenplay is written by a woman, I felt that this particular story should’ve also been directed by a woman, especially a woman of color. Chen does a nice job of creating this film, as the book was also written by a man, but it lacked the emotional connection, that those who are more in touch with actual female experiences like this, would readily have.

Since the majority of people who experience rape and terrorism are women, then a woman would’ve been a better choice to do a film like this. I’m simply tired of men telling our stories in general. I wouldn’t know anything about his journey in the world as an Asian man, and I wouldn’t dare think that I had the experience to write/direct films about it.

Utopis

There is still a huge gap between male and female directors in the industry and maybe he just should’ve passed on it to give a female a chance. The bottom line is, if you haven’t experienced life as a woman you simply won’t have the insight to create something about women that is truly connected and authentic.

Ervio saved this film with her powerhouse acting abilities and added part of what was necessary, but again, the connection to the situation was palpably nil, and no amount of violent scenes can make up for that. The grief and terror women feel as a collective, is something that simply cannot be replicated by men.

Callie didn’t have Jacqueline’s personal experience, but living as a woman in this world gifts her with the compassion that she knows she needs to have in such sensitive, almost exclusively female situations. Women walk around every day in fear of being killed, raped or more by toxic, entitled, ignorant men.

Still, Ervio’s performance is enough to make this film a good one to see if you can stomach the violence at the end. I very much enjoyed Jacqueline and Callie’s relationship too. It mimics the opposite of the ugly toxic violence with the softness, kindness and hope necessary for healing to occur.

I think, especially at this moment in our history, we are far overdue for much more of that.