There’s a special circle of hell reserved for made-for-TV movies that try to disguise themselves as Deep Southern Character Studies™ — where everyone speaks in molasses-drenched metaphors, the cicadas never shut up, and family dysfunction is treated like a sacrament. Welcome to Floating Away (1998), a John Badham-directed misfire that plays like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof if you replaced the cat with a wet dishrag and the tin roof with a wet blanket.
This movie wants to be profound. It wants you to feel. It wants you to understand the pain of fathers and sons, the weight of legacy, the struggle of forgiveness. What it delivers is 90 minutes of emotional constipation dressed up in Southern gothic window dressing. If Tennessee Williams were still alive, he’d sue for slander.
The Premise: Fatherhood, Floods, and Flannel
Floating Away stars Rosanna Arquette, David Cubitt, and Robert Forster — three actors with better resumes than this project deserves. The film follows Richard (Cubitt), a man so emotionally stunted he makes a pinecone look introspective. Richard’s estranged father (Forster), a grizzled swamp-dweller with the emotional IQ of a hammer, re-enters his life just in time for a massive storm and the kind of ham-fisted family drama that makes soap operas look subtle.
As the floodwaters rise, so do the daddy issues. Richard’s got trauma, daddy’s got denial, and mom’s already dead (because this kind of movie never gives moms anything to do but die and fuel male grief). There’s yelling, sulking, reluctant bonding, a few scenes with children that feel like Hallmark fever dreams, and, yes, lots of metaphorical and literal water imagery. Drowning in emotion? More like gasping for plot.
David Cubitt: Drifting on Autopilot
As Richard, Cubitt gives us a masterclass in wooden angst. He’s either staring blankly into the middle distance or yelling at someone who’s trying to help. The emotional range runs from “mildly irritated mechanic” to “guy who dropped his fries in the parking lot.” He’s supposed to be the heart of the film — the wounded son trying to reconcile with a father who never hugged him — but he delivers every line like he’s asking for a refund at a hardware store.
His big emotional breakthroughs feel like dramatic readings of Yelp reviews. “I just wanted you to care, Dad!” lands with the impact of a damp napkin. There’s a moment where he tries to express years of suppressed pain, and you half expect someone off-camera to yell “Cut! More human, less Ikea instruction manual!”
Robert Forster: Swamp Philosopher, Emotionally Unavailable
Robert Forster, bless his grizzled heart, plays the father — a man carved out of old porch wood and cigarette ash. He speaks in half-mumbled wisdoms and looks like he’s been disappointed in humanity since 1963. His idea of parenting is offering unsolicited advice and then storming off when it’s not received with applause.
Forster tries. He really does. He gives the role more weight than the script deserves. But the writing drags him down like a corpse in a bayou. Every scene he’s in feels like a deleted subplot from Sling Blade, minus the subtlety or narrative purpose.
And can we talk about the wardrobe? The man wears more flannel than a 1994 Pearl Jam tour. His beard alone deserves a SAG card. He looks like he’s been fishing for catfish and regrets since the Nixon administration.
Rosanna Arquette: The Obligatory Woman
Rosanna Arquette shows up as the ex-wife or maybe current wife — it’s honestly hard to tell because her character’s main job is to be concerned, offer exposition, and remind the audience that women still technically exist in this world. She gets a few decent lines and tries to inject some life into the soggy proceedings, but she’s essentially a prop with great cheekbones.
The film doesn’t care about her interior life. Her entire character arc could be summed up as “worried woman stands on porch while men emotionally flail.”
The Direction: Badham Phones It in from a Boat
John Badham has directed classics. Saturday Night Fever. WarGames. Blue Thunder. But here, it feels like he’s directing with one hand while scrolling through real estate listings with the other. There’s no urgency. No rhythm. Just long, meandering shots of Southern landscapes and actors monologuing at each other like they’re auditioning for a high school production of A Streetcar Named Meh.
The cinematography is fine in the way that motel paintings are fine. There’s a lot of symbolism involving water — subtle as a boot to the head. Rain, rivers, sweat, tears. Water means emotion, you see. Get it? Water = FEELINGS. The title alone screams “This script was found in a junior college screenwriting class.”
The pacing drags like a canoe through molasses. You keep expecting something to happen. A twist. A revelation. A gator attack. But nope. Just more moody stares and arguments that feel like they’ve been looping for years.
The Emotional Core: A Soggy Tissue of a Movie
The emotional climax comes — if you can call it that — when father and son finally confront their decades of resentment. What should be explosive is delivered with the intensity of a stern voicemail. “I was there for you, in my way,” Forster growls, and it’s supposed to be devastating, but it lands like a wet sponge on linoleum.
The film wants catharsis. It gets resignation. You’re not moved — you’re mildly annoyed that it took 85 minutes to arrive at what you already knew in the first five: everyone in this movie is sad, tired, and possibly allergic to therapy.
The Ending: Ambiguous or Just Forgotten?
The movie ends with some vague notion of reconciliation. The storm passes. The waters recede. There’s a hug. Maybe. Or a handshake. Or just a shared glance while sad violins play. Honestly, by the time the credits roll, you’re already Googling what else Robert Forster was in so you can watch Jackie Brown again and forget this ever happened.
Final Verdict: 1.5 out of 5 Waterlogged Monologues
Floating Away is the kind of Southern drama that mistakes slow pacing for depth and mumbled pain for gravitas. It’s not just boring — it’s frustratingly boring, like being forced to sit through a family reunion hosted by people who forgot why they were mad in the first place.
Watch it if you’re trapped on a couch and someone threw the remote into a flooded basement. Otherwise, float away from this one. Quickly. Before the water rises and drowns your last good brain cell.
