A nice day for a sail? Not quite.
Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur is no stranger to the survival story genre; he directed 2015’s mountain-expedition-gone-bad thriller Everest, and 2012’s Icelandic-language The Deep, about a fisherman who capsizes before being rescued after six days in the water. That film probably planted the seed for Kormákur to take on Adrift, the film adaptation of Red Sky in Mourning: A True Story of Love, Loss, and Survival at Sea, Tami Oldham Ashcroft and Susea McGearhart’s 2002 book about the dire consequences of Hurricane Raymond on a sailing adventure undertaken by Tami and her fiancé Richard Sharp in 1983. Kormákur, working from a screenplay by twin brothers Aaron and Jordan Kandell (Moana) and David Branson Smith (Ingrid Goes West), has succeeded in creating a nerve-wracking, what-would-you-do, visceral sea faring adventure that rises to the top of a fairly crowded field.