It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I loved this movie. The feeling and pace was graceful, the cinematography and music wonderful. There's loneliness and loss here, but it's covered in a way that makes you just fall in love with the characters and care for them, hope they come through. For those that can identify with the vib of New York, the film is likely to be appreciated even more, as elements of the subway and streets come through realistically.This movie visits the lives of three different people, and how they coincidentally intermingle within the movie time line. The other characters in the movie add some color and background, and do well also.I've watched this movie multiple times and every time I come away satisfied, and more so: inspired. You can use this movie to better your life, to better your art. Strongly recommend watching it on a quiet, relaxing night.

Adrift in Manhattan is a small, lovingly made, melancholy film about the intersecting lives of various emotionally wounded people in Manhattan. As I watched the film though, I felt something was "off." Then I realized it, the Manhattan in this movie is much too quiet. I lived in Manhattan for years and one of my overriding memories of it is the constant noise; sirens, garbage trucks, horns honking, boom boxes, crazy people yelling, etc. Yet, in this film Manhattan is a quiet, dignified place. If only! I wonder what the film would have been like if it actually had the background noise that's so much a part of the city. I think it would have improved the film and made the characters' loneliness all the more poignant.

Skimming through the nine comments previous to mine, they mostly seem to be from New Yorkers or New Yorker wannabes. If one does a general survey of this IMDb comments site, they will notice that comments coming from a film's location shoots tend to be disproportionately positive. Since New York City is notorious for attracting and harboring a coterie of people best described as self-centered navel-gazers who don't give a rap about the rest of the world, maybe it's not surprising they smugly go ga-ga over ANYTHING New York: Andy Warhol proved they'll even wax poetic over a 48-hour flick just showing paint drying, as long as it's set in New York.If this creepy movie had been shot here in Rosebush, with a mom flashing her bare tits at her 20-year-old socially crippled son, who then loses his innocence doing Rollergirl doggie-style while beating her butt and telling her she's a bad mom because her toddler fell out the window while she was on the phone, and next stumbles across Nasty Mom Number Two's blind patient lashing out angrily with his cane in a local transit hub, New York moviegoers would accuse our town of being an inbred backwoods hell-hole with nothing to offer the world culturally.For non-New Yorkers in search of something serious set in the Big Apple, go see DOUBT. For those wanting to see a well-done movie about intersecting lives, rent the Los Angeles-set SHORT CUTS. But if you want your skin to crawl watching a series of random amoral anti-erotic incidents happening to uniformly implausible characters, perhaps you also belong ADRIFT IN MANHATTAN.

"Adrift in Manhattan" tells three intertwining tales of life along Manhattan's 1 subway line. (The film was originally called "1/9," but was probably changed due to the 9 recently being discontinued.) The first concerns an optometrist (Heather Graham) haunted by the death of her child and no longer able to make a connection to anyone, including her estranged husband (William Baldwin). The second deals with a teenager (Victor Rasuk) with a disturbing home life who can only relate to the world through a camera lens. The third deals with an elderly painter (Dominic Chianese, best known for playing Uncle Junior on "The Sopranos") rapidly losing his eyesight as he discovers love with a younger woman (Elizabeth Pena).I don't give this film a 10 rating lightly...I don't gratuitously hand out the highest ratings to films. But I loved this movie, and I love movies like this: character-driven dramas with solid plots in which the featured players take interesting, unexpected paths. "Adrift in Manhattan" is filled with great characters who could each be the single focus of a film. It's to the credit of director Alfredo de Villa that he manages to fit them all within the confines of this roughly 90 minute movie in such a satisfying manner.The acting is excellent. Heather Graham gives a carefully nuanced performance that should serve to remind people she can be a great actress when working with solid material and a skilled director. William Baldwin is a revelation. Here you realize the magnitude of his potential, and how he is not "just one of the Baldwin brothers." Victor Rasuk manages to be both creepy and sympathetic, and it's a credit to his talent that you wind up rooting for him more than anyone else. Dominic Chianese gives a heartbreaking performance, and proves to be an actor of great depth. Anyone expecting to see traces of Uncle Junior will be surprised. It makes one hope he stays with us a long, long time so that we can see the full realization of his talents now that the spotlight is on him and he's better able to get good roles like this. I could go on and on about the stand-out performance by Elizabeth Pena, but time is limited.There's a raw, leave-nothing-to-the-imagination sex scene between Graham and a certain character (trying not to divulge any serious spoilers here) that is not only surprising (given how, when Graham shot it, there were very high hopes for her ABC sitcom and for her becoming a network prime time queen), but cathartic and wholly satisfying in terms of character arc. It is shocking and unexpected when it comes, but makes perfect sense when you realize the film has been building up to it.Best of all about "Adrift in Manhattan," de Villa effortlessly presents a New York City vibrant in all of its diverse glory, not only in terms of race, but age, class, mental stability, aspirations, and broken dreams...the way the city truly is. This isn't the fake, lifeless, Midwest fantasy New York you find in "Friends," "Sex and the City," "The Devil Wears Prada," and most sitcoms and movies of the last several years. This is the real New York as presented through the gaze of narrative film.Travel along the 1 train in Manhattan and you'll find a million stories, with each one leading to a million others. (A real life, non-virtual MySpace network.) De Villa and co-writer Nat Moss take three interconnecting ones, and the result is an amazing film that not only provides an ideal showcase for the actors involved, but also serves notice to the film-making community that a talented director has arrived. Let's hope some studio or mini-major pays attention.