Drifting Souls: Desperation and Bad Ideas

Is it worth your time?

If you like movies that feel like a dusty stage play found in an attic, maybe. It’s for folks who enjoy watching characters make predictably terrible decisions for the sake of a quick buck. If you need logic or people acting like normal human beings, you’re going to be annoyed by the first ten minutes.

The whole thing kicks off with a premise that’s basically a suicide note for a reputation. A young lawyer needs five grand for her dad’s surgery, so she just... puts out an ad to sell herself into marriage? Sure, why not. It’s a bold move, but in the world of Drifting Souls, it’s just the start of the headache.

The cast of characters

You’ve got a newspaperman sniffing around for a scoop, because of course you do. Then there’s a drunk playboy who seems to exist purely to be taken advantage of by a con artist duo. It’s a real mess of motives.

Mischa Auer is in this, which usually means there’s going to be some strange energy floating around. He doesn't disappoint, even if the script gives him very little to actually do but look shiftier than a deck of marked cards. The scenes with the con artists feel like they were pulled from a completely different, much grittier movie.

• The dialogue moves fast, sometimes too fast to actually register.
• The playboy’s apartment looks suspiciously like a set that was used for Oh! Bill Behave.
• There’s a moment where a character just stands by a window for way too long.

I found myself zoning out during the scenes where they try to explain the con. It’s a lot of talk about money and leverage that doesn't really go anywhere interesting. It just keeps churning.

It reminds me a bit of the frantic energy in When We Were Twenty-One, but with way less heart and a lot more cynicism. Everyone is drifting, just like the title says, but nobody seems to be going anywhere worth the trip. Sometimes, watching these old B-movies feels like digging through a junk drawer. You find a few shiny things, but mostly it’s just paperclips and dust. 🤷‍♂️

The ending isn't exactly a surprise, but at least it ends. I wouldn't call it a classic, but it’s a weird little time capsule of how movies used to handle 'desperate' situations. Just don't think too hard about the math—five thousand dollars for a surgery in that economy? Someone is getting ripped off, and it might be the audience.