Wonderfully offbeat film!

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!Boring would be complimentary. This movie lacks everything, no drama, no passion, no nothing... It's a mixture of somebody else's ideas (the broken leg? Flowers in the bed while he's asleep? Trying to break his leg again? The man being kept in a bedroom... Her discomforting passion/obsession towards him! Come on!). The soundtrack is even worse than the plot itself. I really don't see the point in having some oh-so-romantic strings highlighting the sentence: "I made apple pie!" Really, don't waste your time watching it. It's absolutely not worth it. Useless.

When an unknown man with amnesia (Spader) is washed up on a secluded beach of Northern Ireland, he is taken in by a solitary eccentric spinster (Brochet)and it becomes immediately apparent that she has "control issues." Since he has a broken leg, he's temporarily at her mercy and tries to humor her as she becomes increasingly strange. Brochet plays "Sarah" so well that the viewer soon surmises that beneath her elfin winsomeness lies some dangerous emotional and mental instability which will eventually erupt. She succeeds in seducing the stranger and thereafter regards him as her personal possession. The arguments with her old harpy of a mother are telling. When the couple have a special candlelit dinner commemorating his sexual surrender, she appears wearing a weird lacy gown strongly suggesting the mad Miss Havisham in "Great Expectations." Viewer interest will be maintained until the inevitable tragic result of the man breaking free of the coerced relationship which bears a familiar parallel in reverse to "The Collector."

Anne Brochet and James Spader give excellent performances. Though the storyline is not particularly orignial I found both to be very believable characters. (Anne Brochet, hauntingly so) The plot is a more likely, and subtle, variation on the "Fatal Attraction" theme. Unlike Glen Close's character in Fatal Attraction Sarah (Brochet) is a very likable and attractive woman ... well, except for a little problem with "abandonment issues". <smile> The power of the conflict this movie generates is tied to Spader's (and the viewers) empathy for Sarah. I would highly recommend this movie for those viewers that tend to like "character driven" movies.

I thought that this movie was lovely, it had a great plot and the actors did their jobs well. I don't think that this was a slow movie. I would suggest that any human watch Driftwood if they want to see a beautiful yet tragic film.