Movie Review Drift

Drift (2024) 

Directed by Anthony Chen

Written by Susannah Farrell, Alexander Maksik 

Starring Cynthia Erivo, Alia Shawkat 

Release Date February 9th, 2024 

Published February 12th, 2024 

Drift stars Cynthia Erivo as Jacqueline, an African woman struggling to get by on the streets of Greece. We meet Jacqueline as she's struggling to find a place to stay and stay safe for a night. She has a small bag and the clothes on her back. She has no money and only finds a brief refuge as she sleeps for a night in a cave on the beach. Washing her clothes in the ocean, she's a mystery, we don't know why she's here or where she intended to be. 

Struggling for money or food, Jacqueline takes to offering foot massages to tourists on the beach. This gets her a couple of bucks to get a sandwich that may be her only meal for a day or so. Meanwhile, an African man keeps popping up, calling her sister, and claiming he wants to help her. Is he for real? Is he trouble? We will never know as Jacqueline manages to escape him twice before we can see what his motives are.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review Wicket Pt 1

Wicked Part 1 

Directed by John M. Chu 

Written by Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox 

Starring Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum 

Release Date November 22nd, 2024 

Published November 22nd, 2024 

I really enjoy musicals. I love movie musicals. I love the Tom Hooper adaptation of Les Miserables. All of this is mentioned to lay out my qualifications as someone who is more than merely open to loving musicals. And I was open to loving Wicked Part 1, even as I have never experienced the stage musical beyond seeing Idina Menzel sing Defying Gravity in a clip on Tik Tok. So, why don’t I love Wicked Part 1? I’m not quite sure. I don’t dislike Wicked, I recommend you see Wicked, but this article is going to be about me trying to figure out why I like but don’t love Wicked. 

Wicked stars Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, the woman who will become the famed and reviled Wicked Witch of the West. Elphaba was born green and this has rendered her as an outcast from birth. Thus, when she arrives at Shiz University, she’s a spectacle, whether she wants to be or not. This is magnified by her first meeting with the most popular student at Shiz, Galinda (Ariana Grande), a pink and bubbly young woman who desires to become a witch under the tutelage of the university’s most well known and respected sorceress, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh).

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here.