76 Days Adrift Review: Survival Tale Lost at Sea

76 Days Adrift
(USA, 105 min.)
Dir/Prod. Joe Wein

 

There’s a great story in the documentary 76 Days Adrift, but one might find a better telling in the book that inspires it. The film brings to screen the story of adventurer Steven Callahan, who previously published his account of his time at sea in the 1986 memoir Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea. Not to be confused with the 2018 Shailene Woodley drama Adrift, or the COVID doc 76 Days, this survival tale hews closer to the 2013 survival drama All Is Lost with Robert Redford. It’s one man’s tale of defying the elements on the high seas. But what 76 Days Adrift brings in true life pedigree, it lacks in cinematic power. This story should be gripping and suspenseful, but it’s about as tense as a hangout podcast.

Callahan tells his story in an awkwardly shot direct address interview, but, to his credit, he’s a good raconteur. The success of his book and the heroism of his survival undoubtedly mean that he’s had lots of practice telling his yarn. His confident manner steadies the boat. However, the film recreates his time at sea using limited visual filler. It’s impressive that director Joe Wein has so many of Callahan’s original tools at his disposal, but after so many point of view shots looking down the barrel of a harpoon gun, the adventure becomes rather tedious. No doubt there’s an element of art imitating life as Callahan recounts the malaise of being stranded at sea.

76 Days Adrift tells how Callahan admirably relied on his survivalist skills and experience when he departed the Canary Islands in January, 1982 after a hearty sailing adventure. He recalls how his final stretch of his travels was set to be a solo sail to Antigua. However, a violent bump during the night, possibly caused by a relative of Moby Dick, wrecked his boat in the Atlantic. After several tries, perhaps the most dramatically engaging portion of this tale, Callahan says he inflated the lift raft and abandoned ship.

Between that shipwreck and his rescue 76 days later, Callahan says he spent his time fishing, mending the boat, gathering water through stills, and keeping thorough logs in his journal. The latter proves useful here as Callahan has a very detailed story. Although that also means that the documentary sometimes just observes him reading his old handwritten notes. There’s lots of useful information to glean here for intrepid adventurers, and a fair cautionary tale for others, but the film itself feels just as hungry for resources as Callahan was during the journey.

With the film’s executive producers including Life of Pi director Ang Lee, who gave perhaps the most visually dazzling lost at sea parable ever with his Oscar-winning odyssey, the story feels under-served cinematically. (Not that a documentary needs 3D tigers.) For a film that relies so heavily on dramatic re-creations, the wealth of dramatic survival tales illustrate the film’s limitations by comparison. A few still photos pepper the film between the repetitive point of view shots of a hand doing this or that in the raft. The visual design simply remains too adrift to emotionally engage a viewer. Such an observation doesn’t mean to downplay or diminish Callahan’s heroism or experience. Alternatively, it deserves a thrilling telling to match the oral history of survival.

76 Days Adrift screens at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema on Jan. 14 as part of the Doc Soup series.

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