Shailene Woodley knows how to play an ordinary woman who's wild at heart, and she keeps you captivated, even when the film itself is watchable in a perfectly competent, touching, and standard way
more romantic than harrowing; Heavily focused on exploring the magical months the young couple spent together before the accident, the film is likely to appeal to young romantics
Kormakur and Richardson haven't made a survival story for the ages, but they do make a case, however briefly, for the value of old-fashioned visual spectacle that's unafraid to work on a smaller, simpler scale than its disaster-movie cousins
a true, harrowing, emotion-driven survival thriller about a young woman lost at sea; a moving story about a natural born wanderer who needs an anchor to know her own strength
a pleasant-surprise picture; It's all done expertly and with an unexpectedly deft sleight-of-hand twist in the homestretch that proves once again that Kormakur is the kind of overachieving director that one pigeonholes at their own risk