This movie runs for 120 minutes including credits. This movie did not feel like 120 minutes, rather it felt like binging through a weak 12-episode slice of life. It consistently had downtime in which I felt that the plot was moving fucking nowhere, which is pretty ironic considering how the whole movie is about kids trying to find their way back home.
A quick explanation of the plot: a group of friends gets stuck in an apartment building that happens to teleport in the middle of the ocean and they work together to survive and find their way back home.
Now that may sound interesting at first until you realize... that's it?
Well not really, there's more to the story. But honestly, I wish that was it, because the "more", is absolutely fucking bullshit.
The movie does not give a rat's ass about the things it throws at the viewer. It goes from one plot point to the other, see-sawing between elements. I wouldn't be surprised if someone with bipolar wrote the script for this movie because not a single aspect of the movie was explained or developed further. You're left with a blank face at the end of the credits with one question in your mind: "What the fuck just happened?"
And to make matters worse, the characters are absolute dogshit. The director literally took cookie-cutter personalities and copy-pasted them into the script. I don't know how much more basic you can get with how they're written, their backstories, and their interactions.
From the very first minute to the last, it oozes mediocrity. Animation-wise, there's nothing noteworthy here. A big-budget anime film by Netflix is bound to look at least good, but the only thing that could save a story this boring was beautiful animation, which it also fails to deliver in that regard.
Drifting Home is an experience that only the bottom 5% of viewers will find fulfillment in. As a movie watcher, you expect your time and patience to be rewarded with a journey worthwhile, or a sense that something about you changed compared to before you sat down on the couch. However, I can say with confidence that I have gained nothing by watching this movie, except for the feeling that I probably could've finished a better Studio Ghibli movie instead.
