‘Row Of Life’ Review – Rowing To The Diary Of The Dead

After 2023’s Nyad gained global attention when both lead actresses Annette Bening and Jodie Foster received SAG, Golden Globes, and Academy Award nominations for their respective performances as Diana Nyad and Bonnie Stoll, stories about women at sea started gaining more focus and attention. The world has developed a hunger for tales about women out in the wild, on their own, battling not only nature, especially Poseidon himself at his most enraging moments, but the true core of the feminine spirit. 

This is where Row of Life comes to unravel another inspiring story about ocean rower, Marine Corps veteran, three-time Paralympian, and fourteen Guinness World Record holder Angela Madsen, chronicling her journey in rowing solo and unassisted across the Pacific Ocean. Her journey covers the endlessly stretching ocean from LA to Hawaii, but as viewers, the documentary gives us more than a glimpse into a tale of resilience and survival against all odds.

One of the most touching and interesting parts of the documentary is Angela’s relationship with her wife, Debra, which takes viewers to a more intimate level beyond the familiar grandeur of the woman rowing the Pacific alone. Director Soraya Simi creates this magical fairytale of finding true love at a later stage in life between Angela and Debra, but also of how love can overcome the bizarreness of a life lived larger than a typical person would ever dare to dream. A paraplegic, openly queer woman rowing the Pacific solo is not an ordinary athletic tale. It’s a dream too good to be true. But instead of focusing on her solo journey, Simi takes us on this wild adventure of how a partner can be the true support a talented person needs and secretly craves, even if some of them can live and die without finding one.

This is where the importance of a female documentarian at the helm of this project comes from. Simi is more concerned with Angela and Debra’s connection and how it relates to the female athlete’s life and passion. Debra’s role as the loving wife is highlighted prominently in the documentary. She is almost shown in every scene of the film, as if Angela’s journey mirrors hers, and Simi makes sure to make Debra’s presence no less important or prominent than Angela’s. This is especially shown in Angela’s earlier time as a person with disability before Debra enters her life.

Angela handpicked Simi to document her journey, but she never knew Simi would also document her legacy. This documentary is a meditation not only on resilience and stamina—all those big words that probably lose their meaning after being overused multiple times to describe heroes of all times. It’s a slice of life, an attempt to get inside the mind of someone too attached to something they may not conquer, a battle they probably know they can’t win. Not just that, it’s an ancient Greek conquest of the grandeur of nature, man vs. the angry gods, attempting to make one last winning stroke at something larger than life and spectacular. 

Simi makes the documentary less about the winds and the current, nature conspiring against Angela lonely as she rows her boat, and more about the love story between two women—one sheltered and safe at home, the other sailing the wild storms at sea. It’s not until we realize how this story ends, and that not all love stories have a happy ending, that we realize that the gold pot is truly in the journey, not the destination. But that’s not to dismiss the excellent work she has done with documenting everything, and precisely showing how Angela’s last rowing trip has been going, and what transpired. The screenlife elements and the digital reimagining of the rowing trip don’t miss a detail, and take us on the journey with Angela, trapped with her beaming spirit in the middle of the raging ocean, unsure of how things would end.

In a twisted turn of events, the documentary becomes an eerie diary of the dead, a book of the afterlife that opens a glimpse into some rare and last-minute conversations between people in love, but also of a woman’s Christopher McCandless-esque quest for an unknown that no one has ever deciphered. Can she, a paraplegic, 60-year-old woman, row the Pacific alone? Until the end, we don’t realize that she didn’t embark on this journey to answer that question, but to become one herself.

Row of Life is a great title. It immediately evokes memories of singing “Row, row, row your boat” as a child in kindergarten. It’s not just a celebration of huge athletic achievements, but of individuality, inclusion, and the stamina of the female spirit.

Row of Life is currently available on Digital platforms. 

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