Drifting Home

This films best quality is its animation. By far this is the best thing about it. The buildings moving in the water and the underwater scenes are great. The story is really original and if the movie was shortened by twenty minutes or so, it would have worked much better. The thing that massively holds this film back are the characters and runtime. The runtime is just under two hours and it drags. The films two leads keep apologizing to each other time and time agian to where its just annoying. The mysterious conclusion on what happened at the end just seemed cheap and that they didn't know how to end it. So while there are quite a lot of positives to keep the film afloat to me, it is certainly far from perfect. That saying I think a 7/10 is deserving seeing as the film worked enough to where it had more good then bad things for it.

This show could have been good if they didnt rely on unruly children being annoying and bickering the whole time to create drama and obstacles.

The art is great, the theme is unique. But the characters are just completely unbearable.

The children all looking back at their life remembering their best memories when they are like 12 years old is super annoying, they make them reminisce like they have lived these long traumatic lives full of woes and hardships. These are kids, not 50 year olds meeting up for a class reunion.

Kid being a jerk to everyone just to be a jerk. Other kid being a jerk just because hes selfish. Other kid being a jerk because the other kids being selfish.

The only likeable characters are the ones that seem more like side characters just there to fill the empty space.

Drifting Home is admirable for its patient commitment to unpacking the children's feelings about each other, the building, and other relics from their pasts, all as they learn how to carry their attachments and memories to new places.

Helmed by Studio Colorido (A Whisker Away, Penguin Highway), Drifting Home had good visuals, with a fantasical kinda storyline that relies upon relationships that are tough to let go. There's enough liveliness to Drifting Home that two hours in a single location against a minimal background doesn't actually feel like overkill. While the overall journey is smartly and sensitively realized, there are points where the movie does feel (appropriately!) a little lost at sea, as its characters wrestle between youthful impulses and empathy for their friends.

My Rating : 7/10.

This was another beautiful movie. I would say though that the whole thing with the complex being at sea made no sense. But does it really have to. The more I watched though I interpreted the film in a way of childhood innocence slipping away from these kids as the one thing they have always known may not be with them anymore. It was a very nice film and I enjoyed the character development we got with each of them, there were some intense scenes that were a little scared and at one point I thought it was all the head of the main character. Overall though yet another lovely anime. Its showing that netflix is getting better and better at making them.

'Drifting Home (2022)' is an animated adventure that sees a group of elementary schoolers trapped inside an abandoned apartment block as it floats along a seemingly endless sea after a spout of torrential rain floods what seems like the whole world. Is it real? Is it a dream? Is it a poorly conceived allegory? Don't expect an answer to that, as the flick never even attempts to tackle its ambiguities. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the way in which it's done leaves quite a bit to be desired. Of course, that's a relatively minor issue in the grand scheme of things. That's because the flick suffers from a much more destructive flaw: it's way too long. Marching past its anticipated ninety minute runtime and barrelling headfirst into triple digits, the piece unflinchingly stretches its relatively repetitive plot far past the pinnacle of its elasticity. There are about four different endings, each of which visualise the same central conflict in a slightly different way. The way in which its stubborn characters constantly regress away from the growth that's often within their reach is rather interesting, but it happens once or twice too often to feel satisfying and actually seems a bit accidental when you consider the other pacing problems the piece has. It's worth mentioning that the characters are rather well-rounded and generally have an underlying complexity that's perhaps unanticipated. However, a few of them are certainly less developed than the others, acting more as filler than anything else. All of them are brash, immature kids who shout and scream and cry and kick off for no real reason, which is as realistic and believable as it is annoying and (potentially) off-putting. The animation does a good job of conveying the story, though there are some instances of really odd framing that seem to only exist as they do so that the animators can avoid doing lip-sync in a couple of scenes. Generally, it's a visually pleasing piece that eventually contrasts lots of colour and vibrancy with the tangibly gritty milieu of its decaying brutalist setting. It's not the most aesthetically astounding anime I've seen, but it's certainly well-achieved and keeps you engaged - visually, at least. The film makes obvious efforts to be emotionally moving but it ends up dealing in overblown melodrama more than considered poignancy. Its emotional elements definitely work on occasion, though, and they hint at a more powerful picture hidden somewhere within this one. Ultimately, this is a decent animated effort that struggles with a strained pacing but has some enjoyable moments sprinkled throughout its unfortunate two-hour runtime.