Not Waving But Drowning
Sometimes, I just spend a lot of time looking for a movie to watch, but I don’t know what I want to watch, so I just browse Netflix for forty-five minutes before deciding to rewatch a TV show I’ve already seen three times. I almost didn’t watch this movie. I saw it, I read the description, and a voice in my head said Audrey, you could just watch The Office again, but I didn’t, and I’m glad.
Not Waving But Drowning is about two girls, Adele and Sara, who are about to move to New York together, only just as they are about to leave, Sara as to stay home while Adele goes without her, and this movie basically just follows their relationship and adventures in their time apart.
The Bad
- I feel like it was kind of thin on the characterization. I never felt like I really knew what kind of people these characters were, and didn’t get a good sense of the friendship between Adele and Sara. I feel like the movie starts in the middle of everyone’s lives and we never get a sense of who they were or what they were doing before the moment the film begins, and I find that it made it difficult to relate to the characters and understand them.
- There were a lot of predictable moments that I totally saw coming, and while that isn’t the worst thing ever, it takes some of the fun out of it.
The Good
- Strong performances. Megan Guinan and Vanessa Ray are talented actresses, and that definitely helped this movie.
- The characters didn’t seem fully developed, but I found them all believable and interesting people.
- I felt like it was a visually pretty movie.
- I liked the ending a lot. To me, it gave a lot of perspective to who Adele and Sara were, probably more than throughout the entirety of the movie.
- Even though there were a lot of predictable moments, there were also moments where these character made decisions that surprised me, and like the ending did, it was these moments where I really learned the most about who these girls were.
- Interesting soundtrack. It was for sure not what I thought would go with the movie, but it definitely worked.
- Also, I just really love movies about friendship etc.
Overall
I thought it was a highly entertaining movie – not perfect, but really enjoyable. It opens with the short films “The Most Girl Part of Your Body,” which was something I honestly didn’t understand. The two were completely unrelated (the characters and plot were unrelated to each other), but that’s not really here nor there. I enjoyed it, but could have lived without it.
7.5/10 – I really enjoyed this movie, and would recommend it.
BLUE ROTUNDA 