Anyone who has traveled to seaside resort areas around the world will recognize them, the obvious foreigners who spend their days approaching tourists with assorted trinkets to sell and are most often ignored or shooed away by Westerners.
Precious few films have put such figures centerstage, but Drift does that and quite a bit more as it examines a young woman whose currently forlorn position in the world masks the very different sort of life to which she was once accustomed.
Tragedy and bereavement are dealt with an exceptionally acute and insightful manner in Drift. Working from a 2013 novel by Alexander Maksik, the full title of which is A Marker to Measure Drift, the author and his co-writer Susanne Farrell tackled a challenging narrative that many filmgoers would readily avoid, a personal tragedy of staggering magnitude.
But not only has Singapore director Anthony Chen set himself a tough task in this ambitious adaptation, he has also notably succeeded in making viewers see the world through very different eyes.
Read more on deadline.com