Drifting Home
Drifting Home is streaming on Netflix at the time of writing. Rated PG. Common Sense says 10.
STORY: D+
In the movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray is forced to repeat the same day over and over again. That sounds repetitive. It is. But the movie is a flat out, all-time classic. Even though each day is an exact replica of the one before it, he doesn’t do the same things each day. He always reacts differently or tries something new, which transforms every “same day” into something completely different. Over time, all the small changes add up to something poignant. That gives the film a feeling of growth and movement.
In Drifting Home, two childhood friends who have drifted apart find themselves in a jam when their entire apartment complex mysteriously drifts out to sea. It feels like we’re watching the drifting kids live out the same day over and over again. It’s always the same arguments, the same miscues over and over and over again. Any changes are far too small to create any tangible growth or movement. The plot just treads water, making it difficult to get into the story.
PEOPLE: D+
Almost every character in the movie is one-dimensional, repetitive, and reasonably annoying. I am no anime expert, but characters like these seem not uncommon to the genre - more of a feature than a bug. I appreciate their backstory being doled out slowly over the course of the film. Still, it took me well over an hour to figure out any decent reason to root for the majority of this crew. I think the fact that I knew so little about them is the reason why.
I’m bumping this grade from “D” to “D+” for Noppo. I can’t wrap my head around the concept of who/what he is, but he’s pretty cool.
FILM GEEK STUFF: B-
The film’s animation rarely excites me, but when it does it’s gorgeous. I love the way the heavy rains come in, especially the way the graphite gray rain clouds slowly gather at the beginning. The sequences when their floating apartment building starts to sink are stunning. They evoke the same drama and spectacle as the corresponding scenes in Titanic do.
ALLEGORY (Elective Class): A-
I had to Google the difference between metaphor and allegory before naming this category. Quickly: metaphors are a quick comparison between two unlike things (for example, “the blanket of night wrapped itself around me”). Allegories are “hidden stories” within the story (for example, the difference between T’Challa and Killmonger could be seen as a hidden way to communicate the SIMPLIFIED AND NOT ENTIRELY ACCURATE BY ANY MEANS, debate between the ideals of Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcolm X).
The movie pulls off this neat trick of being two stories in one. On the literal level, it’s a survival saga of a group of kids floating away into the sea atop a huge apartment building. That story doesn’t hook me, as I mentioned earlier. But the second, hidden story does hook me. It’s a story about holding onto the memories of the past too tightly. Specifically, memories of home. What is home? Is it a physical place? Is it the place you feel safest? Is it a place that you need to leave in order to find? These questions make Drifting Home’s hidden story (the allegory) a captivating one.
FINAL COMMENTS:
It’s the stuff lying underneath its surface that will stay in my memory and makes Drifting Away worth trying out. If you become a bit bored by its repetitive nature, grab a shovel. The film is a reminder of the joy that comes from digging deeper into a story.