Drift review – quietly mesmerising Greek island refugee tale

Understated, but with a mesmerising, shell-shocked stillness, British actor Cynthia Erivo’s arresting central performance gives this earnest drama by Singaporean director Anthony Chen (Ilo Ilo, Wet Season) its emotional heft. She plays Jacqueline, a traumatised refugee from war-torn Liberia who has recently arrived on a Greek island. The jagged, rocky terrain of her new home evokes her fractured mental state. But even in survival mode, subsisting on scavenged leftovers and small change, Jacqueline is too proud to beg. That same dignity prompts her to invent a story – a husband and a hotel room – when she strikes up a friendship with an empathic American tour guide, Callie (Alia Shawkat). This portrait of lost souls connecting is unassuming, but quietly powerful.