Row Review: Raindance Film Festival 2025

It’s not the ocean you should be afraid of in survival thriller Row

On a craggy Orkney beach a lone woman, Megan (Bella Dayne) washes ashore with the blood-stained remains of her rowing boat. Seemingly the sole survivor of a team of four that set out to break the world record for rowing across the Atlantic, she is malnourished, traumatised and deeply confused. As Megan tries to explain to the police what happened, we piece together flashbacks of her disastrous journey – from last minute crew substitutions to equipment failure, infighting and even mutiny, this was a voyage destined for failure.

It’s such a strong and enticing premise. ‘Cabin fever’ a notion so universal we already have a unique term for it. Row is as much psychological thriller as it is a survival movie, the terror of the open ocean combined with the claustrophobia of being trapped with a group of people who become increasingly untrustworthy is palpable. The screenplay from debut director Matthe Losasso really tries to capture not just the merciless forces of nature, but the human horror of this situation too.

Yet it almost feels unfair for me to be the one reviewing this film – feats of human endeavour and survival stories are my special interest. From the great (Society of the Snow) to the terrible (Volcano) I am always and forever drawn to these kinds of movies, while simultaneously finding it very hard to suspend my disbelief during them.

For all its promising storytelling Row lacks attention to detail in both craft and premise, sometimes glaringly so. Everyone is just a bit too clean. Despite having been doing hard physical labour in the open ocean for weeks on end there is nary a trace of salt or sweat on any of the rowers clothing. Despite the four complaining of blisters their hand wrappings are pristine white throughout.

The boats emergency beacon is sitting on deck and in the background of most shots – it’s even mentioned once – yet despite the crew’s situation getting truly dire they never attempt to use it. A throwaway moment of it being washed overboard or destroyed in one of the many storms they encounter would have been all it took to fire this frustrating Chekov’s gun and up the ante early on – yet it remains untouched.

Whilst the central story is strong, Row is let down by poor acting. Line delivery is frequently stilted, lead actor Dayne in particular sometimes sounding like she’s an alien trying to engage in human conversation for the first time – perhaps an unfortunate side effect of the multilingual actor trying to maintain a upper class British accent throughout. Co-stars Sophie Skelton and Akshay Khanna are trying their best, but the dialogue for all four leads is woefully underwritten.

Character interactions are so jarring that the team, even in their opening, hopeful moments, never feel like they have the level of connection that would be natural in a tight knit, elite sports crew who’ve trained together for years. I don’t for one second believe that any of these characters would have been willing to use a bucket as a toilet on deck in front of the others – and yet we are supposed to believe they’re the sort of people who could do that. (Like thousands of others I got seriously invested in the TikTok account @theresherows where four women documented the gross reality of their own attempt to row the Atlantic – almost certainly a reference for this film.)

There’s a genuinely satisfying and unexpected reveal late in the final act that does take Row to an surprisingly juicy conclusion. Yet it’s ultimately disappointing, as there’s so much promise and interest in the threads of this story but they’re buried by underwhelming acting and recurrent gimmicky hallucination scenes. A passable survival thriller, this could have been a brilliantly intense psychological study with just a little reworking.

Row recieved it’s world premiere at the Raindance Film Festival 2025 where it is nominated for four awards.