Driftwood

An interesting, if unoriginal, idea that floats around in a largely undramatic sea, "Driftwood" is "Damage" without the star-power or production values. This low-key drama about a female wacko who holds a shipwrecked man prisoner in her remote dwelling sports a well-meaning perf from James Spader but lacks the shapeliness in script and direction needed

An interesting, if unoriginal, idea that floats around in a largely undramatic sea, "Driftwood" is "Damage" without the star-power or production values. This low-key drama about a female wacko who holds a shipwrecked man prisoner in her remote dwelling sports a well-meaning perf from James Spader but lacks the shapeliness in script and direction needed to make it work theatrically. Pic sank with all hands on its single-screen London release. Spader is first seen washed up on a rocky shore from some disaster that's never explained. French woodcarver Sarah (Anne Brochet), who lives alone in an isolated shack, hauls him indoors, strips him naked and tends his fractured leg. When he comes round, with a convenient case of amnesia, she tells him they're the only people on a remote island off the west coast of Ireland, whither a supply boat comes only every two months.

An interesting, if unoriginal, idea that floats around in a largely undramatic sea, “Driftwood” is “Damage” without the star-power or production values. This low-key drama about a female wacko who holds a shipwrecked man prisoner in her remote dwelling sports a well-meaning perf from James Spader but lacks the shapeliness in script and direction needed to make it work theatrically. Pic sank with all hands on its single-screen London release.

Related Stories

concert crowd and stock arrow VIP+

New Live Music Data Suggests Cautious Optimism

THE BRONX ZOO, Nicholas Pryor, 1987-1988, © NBC/courtesy Everett Collection

Nicholas Pryor, 'Risky Business' and 'Beverly Hills, 90210' Actor, Dies at 89

Spader is first seen washed up on a rocky shore from some disaster that’s never explained. French woodcarver Sarah (Anne Brochet), who lives alone in an isolated shack, hauls him indoors, strips him naked and tends his fractured leg. When he comes round, with a convenient case of amnesia, she tells him they’re the only people on a remote island off the west coast of Ireland, whither a supply boat comes only every two months.

Popular on Variety

The audience (but not Spader) soon learns that her elevator doesn’t quite stop at the top floor. They’re actually on the mainland; behind a mountain ridge is a town from which she gets supplies from a leering local (Barry McGovern); and in her workshop, she has regular arguments with the ghost of her dead mother (Anna Massey).

Spader’s suspicions start to be aroused by Sarah’s sudden mood shifts, plus a letter from a boyfriend she denies having. Gradually, however, he starts to reciprocate her sexual passion, and at the 50-minute mark, as winter looms, they finally get it on. But the idyll is short: As Spader makes ever more determined efforts to leave and rediscover his identity, Sarah goes to ever more extreme ends to prevent him from going.

Richard Waring’s screenplay, originally set in Scotland, was acquired by Irish producer Mary Breen-Farrelly in 1991 and turned over to helmer Ronan O’Leary to adapt two years later. The bare bones of a potentially involving two-hander are there — and the movie does occasionally have its moments — but the dialogue between the two principals is not sufficiently involving to carry the pic, as it stands, over some of its melodramatic ingredients and unbelievable developments.

Spader (who took the assignment immediately after “Stargate”) does his best with a role that’s underwritten and makes him out to be extremely slow on the uptake. Brochet (“Tous les matins du monde”) is OK in her sudden swings from loving to loony but isn’t up to the demands of fleshing out a foggily written character. The supports play it more like some Grand Guignol horror flick, with McGovern over-the-top as a leering groceries supplier and Massey virtually encoring her mad ghost in last year’s Canadian-set backwoods drama “Sweet Angel Mine.”

Tech credits on the $5.5 million production (shot in spring 1995) are fine, with Billy Williams’ lensing of the Ardmore Studios interiors and Irish exteriors bringing some flavor to the pic, though the much-talked-about progression toward winter is not always clear on the screen.

Jump to Comments

Driftwood

Irish

  • Production: A Blue Dolphin Film & Video release (in the U.K.) of a Goldcrest Films Intl. presentation of a Setanta Film production. Produced by Mary Breen-Farrelly. Executive producers, John Quested, Guy Collins. Directed by Ronan O'Leary. Screenplay, Richard M.N. Waring, adapted by O'Leary.
  • Crew: Camera (color), Billy Williams; editor, Malcolm Cooke; music, John Cameron; production design, Tim Hutchinson; art direction, Moggie Douglas; sound (Dolby Digital), Kieran Horgan, Pat Hayes; line producer, Moira Kelly; assistant directors, Robert Quinn, Tim Lewis.
  • With: The Man ..... James Spader Sarah ..... Anne Brochet McTavish ..... Barry McGovern Mother ..... Anna Massey Father ..... Aiden Grenell Kevin McHugh, John Cleere, Eamon Rohan, Liam Rigney, Caroline Grey, Ger Ryan.

More from Variety

Most Popular

Must Read

Sign Up for Variety Newsletters

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Variety Confidential

A Variety and iHeartRadio Podcast

ncG1vNJzZmiukae2psDYZ5qopV9mhnqDjp%2BgpaVfp7K3tcSwqmicop6ztcPOqJtmaWFmhHSAkG1naWc%3D

 Share!