Adrift in Manhattan

2) Though there have been many films of late that address the issues ofthe isolation of the individual in a society increasingly settling forhomogeneity, few have the honesty and simplicity of presentation asAlfredo De Villa's ADRIFT IN MANHATTAN. Perhaps the reason this filmworks so well is that instead of dealing with the usual tropes, DeVilla restricts his story to three individuals who are sufferingisolation in the noise and autonomy of New York City and are thus'adrift' in a life that seems flat and without a beacon of hope. Thestory De Villa weaves is one of interaction of these characters byalmost serendipitous incidents, moments that change their lives – atleast for a while.

Teenager Simon Colon (Victor Rasuk) lives with his overbearing motherMarta (Marlene Forte) and gets through his life almost withoutspeaking, working in a camera shop, spending his idle hoursphotographing people in the park. Tommaso Pensara (Dominic Chianese) isan elderly painter and music lover who lives alone and supports himselfby being the 'mail boy' in a large firm: his loneliness is heightenedwhen he discovers he has macular degeneration and will go blind. Thephysician who makes his diagnosis is Dr. Rose Phipps (Heather Graham)who is grieving from the recent death of her 2-year old child and isunable to continue her marriage to literature professor Mark Phipps(William Baldwin).

The threads of coincidence begin to tie these people together whenSimon begins to photograph Rose in a manner that resembles stalking,when Tommaso notices and desires and older lady at his workplace,Isabel Parades (Elizabeth Peña) and is encouraged by Dr Rose to sharehis potential blindness with this friend, and when Rose explores theattention Simon bestows on her, filling an emotional need for bothparties. Naturally the development of these intersections is morecomplex but at the same time the manner in which they develop is verytender and gentle.

Some viewers may find the film meandering a bit too much: this is notlinear storytelling but rather shifts in incidents and moods andgradual changes that occur among these simple but needy people, muchlike the coincidences and random kindnesses occur to the sensitive eye.The cast is very fine and the cinematography and musical score sustainthe mood of the piece. This film requires involvement on the part ofthe viewer, and that involvement has its rewards. Grady Harp

3) I recently had the distinct pleasure of seeing Adrift in Manhattan atthe HBO Latino Film Festival in New York. The film made me laugh,almost brought me to tears and definitely kept me on the edge of myseat. The character development is unbelievable in this film. HeatherGraham, William Baldwin, Dominic Chianese and Victor Rasuk (who I haveloved ever since Raising Victor Vargas) all give multi-dimensionalperformances. Victor's character drew me in; Heather's character keptme guessing. You could tell there was something wrong by the distant/unhappy look in her eyes. William Baldwin was extremely convincing as ahusband trying to reclaim his life. Most impressive of all wasDominic's performance. It truly almost brought me to tears. Oh, thismovie also has a VERY STEAMY SEX SCENE!

4) I enjoyed the movie. Didn't expect a lot and was pleasantly surprisedby the storyline, the characters and the development. It is one of themovies that doesn't give enough information about the characters (onpurpose) so that it leaves you with questions and wanting more. Theinter relation between the characters is extremely light so thatnormally annoying feature actually added to this film.

Some of the features of the movie are a little disturbing but Iwouldn't consider them weird enough to prevent most people fromenjoying the movie.

For me a 7 means I enjoyed it and would definitely watch it again. Ijust wouldn't be thrilled to have paid $10 to see it.

5) Although I usually find interest in interwoven character story linesfrom films such as Crash or Magnolia or Babel, I couldn't get myinterests up for this one.

Now I'm not here to complain that the movie lacked explosions, actionor a whole lot of plot twists – it doesn't attempt to be that kind ofmovie. The few plot driven elements are rather scarce and are mostlythere to drive forward the characters rather then the story. The storyitself is never the planned focus anyhow. It is my appreciation thatsome attention to have a more involving plot would have done the work aservice.

In terms of execution (acting, directing) the effort is certainly solidalthough never really stellar : you won't find anything really worthyof seeing the movie on it's own. The problem therefore is the veryblueprint on which the execution rests, and as I pointed earlier, thematerial given is too dry to make the movie a memorable one.

There just isn't enough happening here to make this one worth the look.Nothing much was achieved, and the journey alone wasn't exactly thoughtprovoking nor entertaining. It isn't awful mind you, just veryforgettable.

6) I know what this movie wanted to be. It wanted to be an ensemble movieof people facing traumatic cornerstones in their lives and overcoming,with the usual connection of characters such as movies likes Crash, 20Bucks or Short Cuts. A noble gesture and not exactly original but OK.However , the fact of the matter is that besides being slow , thismovie did what so many other movies seem they feel they have to do…Go right to seediness. A movie that is supposed to be inspirational,challenging , interacting and about making new friends turns into aflick about Glorifying mentally warped individuals. By that I mean theglorification of a stalker. Not only was the stalker glorified butrewarded by cheap role sex as well. From an Oedipus complex strickenyoung man to an eye specialist , beautiful lady that just lost atoddler to an older, underachieving mail clerk losing his eye sight wehave the proponents of a could be good movie. With a supporting cast ofa vastly younger coworker, in love with older man and the separatedhusband of the eye specialist, trying to work things out after tragedy.I rambled enough, just thought the movie had great potential but itfailed to deliver.

7) Watched it, enjoyed it, but…

Adrift in Manhattan follows the lives of 3 main characters for a verybrief period, each having a problem. They connect at some point in themovie, but it isn't clear why they connect or why it results insomething, if it does at all. I really don't need to have everythinglayed out for me, but some clue as to what is happening would be nice.

Spoiler: I only read here that their lives seem to connect cause ofsome subway line, or it is supposed to revolve around that. I neverwould have guessed that, so there is something pretty wrong with themovie. Actually i was wondering if some of them were living in the samebuilding, or if it was all just coïncidental. Characters don't have alot of lines so you get no information from there; no interestingdialogues.

The acting is OK. Camera-work is OK, its all pretty OK and i didn'tfall asleep, but I'm pretty sure a few weeks from now i won't rememberwhat this movie was about at all. I don't even think i know what it'sabout now. (?!) If the object was to show coïncidence on peoples lives,Magnolia is by far superior to this one. If the object was to depictpeople dealing with huge personal problems i know a lot of movies thatpass this one left and right. So i guess i don't get what this isabout, what the object was, or they messed up.

Something's adrift in Manhatten for sure, but what that is remains thequestion.

**SPOILERS*** Originally called "1/9" or the NYC Seventh Avenue subwayline that runs the length of Manhattan Island and ends at the tip ofThe Battery "Adrift in Manhattan" connects three lonely people who livealong its route.

20 year old camera store worker Simon Colon, Victor Rasuk, is obsessedin photographing people on the streets, as well as subways, of NewYork. One day Simon comes across this lady sitting in the park andbecomes infatuated with her multi-colored, or rainbow, scarf.The ladyin question Rose Phipps, Heather Graham, becomes very agitated, andeven frightened, when Simon mails a number of photos he took of her ather brownstone.

We never quite get what Simon's reasons for mailing his secretly takenphotos of Rose were but it almost gets him fired from his job. InsteadRose soon becomes almost as infatuated with Simon as he's with her tothe point of inviting him into her home and, to Simon's utter surpriseand delight, forces him, a virgin, to make love to her!

Like Simon we soon find out that Rose is not all there, emotionally, inthat she's estranged from his husband high school teacher Mark, WilliamBaldwin, and is suffering from a deep depression in the tragic loss ofher and Mark's two year-old son Casey, Leim De Villa. Rose's sexualrelationship with Simon soon starts to effect her work as an eye doctorin her treating a patient of her's the refined elderly and culturedgentleman Tommaso Pensara, Dominic Chianese.

Tommaso is slowly losing his sight and in him loving to paint that's aswell has him receiving a slow and painful death sentence. Tommaso isalso in danger of losing his job in the mail room in that he can't seethe letters and packages in order to correctly distribute them. It'sTommaso's co-worker Isabel Parades, Elizabeth Pena, who not only takesthe time to help him out at his job but cover up all his mistakes.Isabel also falls in love with the some 75 year old bachelor who forthe first time in years feel that he's wanted for himself not histalents; in his music and his art.

All three main characters, Rose Simon and Tommaso, in the movieinterconnect with each other due to their proximity to the 1/9 subwayline. And it's that very reason that makes their lonely and desperatelives, who are aimlessly adrift in Manhattan, that much more worthliving!

9) Skimming through the nine comments previous to mine, they mostly seemto be from New Yorkers or New Yorker wannabes. If one does a generalsurvey of this IMDb comments site, they will notice that commentscoming from a film's location shoots tend to be disproportionatelypositive. Since New York City is notorious for attracting and harboringa coterie of people best described as self-centered navel-gazers whodon't give a rap about the rest of the world, maybe it's not surprisingthey smugly go ga-ga over ANYTHING New York: Andy Warhol proved they'lleven wax poetic over a 48-hour flick just showing paint drying, as longas it's set in New York.

If this creepy movie had been shot here in Rosebush, with a momflashing her bare tits at her 20-year-old socially crippled son, whothen loses his innocence doing Rollergirl doggie-style while beatingher butt and telling her she's a bad mom because her toddler fell outthe window while she was on the phone, and next stumbles across NastyMom Number Two's blind patient lashing out angrily with his cane in alocal transit hub, New York moviegoers would accuse our town of beingan inbred backwoods hell-hole with nothing to offer the worldculturally.

For non-New Yorkers in search of something serious set in the BigApple, go see DOUBT. For those wanting to see a well-done movie aboutintersecting lives, rent the Los Angeles-set SHORT CUTS. But if youwant your skin to crawl watching a series of random amoral anti-eroticincidents happening to uniformly implausible characters, perhaps youalso belong ADRIFT IN MANHATTAN.

10) The director's deftness in quietus and deep story telling was trulymoving in this movie. I believed and was heart felt by all thecharacter's love connections and especially the beautiful love storybetween older couple Tommaso and Isabel really killed me… TheOeudipal relationship the son has wih his mother was totally believableas well.

It is a NY movie and thank god for it. That kind of intersecting oflives with a voyeurisitc view. In the Big City that never stops. Tolove, to die, to suffer, to think, to live. I am now totally obsessedwith this Mexican American director Alfredo de Villa and look forwardto this next movie. Just saw his other Sundnace movie WashingtonHeights and again the torn artist should was caputured beautifully andmore importantly- wamrly. Vivre la indie film and excellent job!