Row (2025) | Film Review

In A Sea of Lies, Everyone Drowns.

Washed ashore in Scotland on a blood-stained rowing boat, a young woman (Bella Dayne) suffering from severe memory loss appears to be the sole survivor of a doomed trans-Atlantic World Record attempt. With all of her crew mates missing, presumed dead, she must try and piece together her fracture memories in order to prove her innocence.

Matthew Losasso's Row (2025) is a psychological thriller, set predominantly aboard the Valiant as our would-be record-breaking crew attempt to cross the trans-Atlantic passage, from Newfoundland to Ireland, in just 28 days.

The film is told through interwoven timelines from the perspective of our protagonist. Opening with the end of a harrowing fight for survival that would transpire through the retelling of Megan's (Bella Dayne) story, after washing ashore at the island of Hoy, Scotland. Megan appears to be the sole-survivor of the Valiant and DCI MacKelly (Tam Dean Burn) is invested in identifying what had happened on that voyage.

Row dips its toes into the human psyche when isolated and under duress, as Daniel (Akshay Khanna), Lexi (Sophie Skelton) and an unknown newcomer, Mike (Nick Skaugen), encounter sabotage, equipment failure and starvation. Each character battles with increasing paranoia, as well as internal personal conflict, predominantly guilt, against the stormy seas of the trans-Atlantic. Megan; in reliving the past, is riddled with a consuming post traumatic stress, making it difficult to believe whether our only connection to the journey is reliable.

The cast are average, but otherwise portray the stress and tension of their situation well. The demand for each actor on the Valiant is admirable, as I felt myself feeling exhausted just watching them row, let alone the in-water segments. A criticism is that Megan appears more purposely obstructive than dealing with perceived memory loss - whether this is due to performance, or perhaps the scenes between Megan and MacKelly had been reduced(?), in an attempt to spend as much time on the Valiant as possible.

The standout areas for this film, are the cinematography and sound design. The cinematography captures the claustrophobic isolation on the open water, akin to other water-based survival films; The Reef (2010, Traucki) and Open Water (2003, Kentis) - sans the sharks. If the film were to have stayed with the Valiant, as opposed to time jumping to Megan in the aftermath, it would have created an oppressive tank of seclusion from any other life and / or land.

The soundscape incorporates a mix of natural sounds of the ocean and marine species; such as whales, to encapsulate the feel of remote separation. At times, the sound of the vessel mirrors the thumping of blood in the human ear, a similar experience to the distortion of sound from perspective of under water.

Row (2025) | Film Review

To avoid any spoilers; there was a feeling of disappointment as the story came to a close and expectations from the opening and time-jumping were somewhat less than delivered. Perhaps, a deeper dive (no pun intended) into more horror-related elements of human psychology could have potentially been explored, but opportunities were missed.

If you like slow-burn, enigmatic survival films that focus on characters more so, then this is one cruise you'll want to catch.

Row will hit UK cinemas on August 29th and will be available on DVD & digital platforms from September 29th, 2025. You can check out the trailer below.