Cast Away
by Tim Wick

Warning! In order to properly express my response to this picture, I have to give out some spoilers. Tragically, these spoilers are nothing compared to the travesty that is the trailer for this film, but in case you have avoided seeing that trailer, I am warning you to avoid reading the rest of my review.

In my review of Me, Myself and Irene I suggested that Jim Carrey was some sort of alien being as no mere human could perform physical comedy the way he could. Well Tom Hanks is from a different planet, but one that is just as removed from Earth as Carrey.

For those of you unaware of the kind of inhuman freak Tom Hanks is, consider this: with the success of Cast Away, he has now been the lead in NINE consecutive box office hits (Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Toy Story, Saving Private Ryan, You've got Mail, Toy Story 2, The Green Mile and Cast Away). In this streak, he has won two Oscars and been nominated for a third, Four of these films have been nominated for Best Picture and two have won (and Saving Private Ryan should have), and he has done all this while remaining one of the most likeable and affordable actors in the business. Go back and watch an episode of Bosom Buddies and ask yourself if you would have guessed such a thing was possible.

With Cast Away, Hanks has probably garnered himself another nomination and likely another win. He may well pull the film into contention for "Best Picture" as his coattails have proven far longer than President-elect Bush.

The movie, primarily set on an island in the Pacific (technically it's a atoll as there is no fresh water source, but let's not get picky), lives or dies with Hanks. He spends over an hour of screen time alone with nothing but a volleyball to be his acting partner. I can't think of another actor in Hollywood that could pull off such a difficult assignment.

One of the things that impressed me about this film early on was the fact that Hanks was not a complete jerk. Typically in a film like this we have a complete cad who has a transforming experience and returns a better person. As played by Hanks, Chuck Noland is certainly imperfect but he is not unlikable. He clearly loves his girlfriend, Kelly (played by a well cast Helen Hunt), and works to ensure that his work schedule does not keep him from the events that are important to her. He is a pretty stern taskmaster at work (where he is responsible for beating lagging Federal Express depots into shape), but he is doing his job. By creating an individual who is not completely unlikable, the film avoids the easy stereotype that would make what follows predictable.

What follows (as you should already be aware) is that Chuck is stranded on an island (sorry, atoll) following the crash landing of the Federal Express airplane that was taking him to his next assignment.

Being stranded is not about soul searching - at least not at first. It is about living or dying. A prolonged sequence that has very little dialogue and no score serves as the harsh reminder of that fact. Chuck is clearly not a back woods kind of guy. He has to lean every trick of survival through a painful and tedious process of trial and error. How do you get a coconut open without tools? Once you figure out how to get it open, how do you get it open so you can actually drink the milk that you need to stay alive?

As Chuck works through these problems, he clings to hope he will be rescued. As Federal Express packages wash up on shore, he meticulously sorts them and leaves them unopened. Certainly some of the contents could help him survive, but opening the packages would signal a sort of defeat to him. Once those packages are open, he acknowledges the grim possibility that he may never see civilization again.

The film could easily have been a "how does he survive until the boat shows up to rescue him after six months" movie, but director Robert Zemeckis and writer William Broyles, Jr. have a different and more interesting idea. Here is where we get into major spoiler territory.

Once we see that Chuck has survived, we have to see what happens when he gets home. The harsh reality of a world that has left him for dead and moved on is what this film is all about. I noted with interest that this film is titled Cast Away, not Castaway. A subtle difference, but one that really gives you an idea what the film is trying to say. The movie is not about being a castaway. It is about what happens when everyone you knew has moved beyond you because they think you are dead. It is also about the fact that after four years alone on an island, there can be no question that the person you were is dead.

I don't want to give away too much here, but the last 30 minutes is the portion of the film I felt was critical to making the film work. Most reviews I have looked at point to the ending as the films primary weakness. What the hell do I know anyway? I never went to film school. I don't see every film that is released. If I'm lucky, I catch about fifty films a year.

Well I know that Zemeckis subtly shows us a life transformed in good and bad ways. There is a scene that shows you several items on a car seat that is of deep importance. The final shot of the film is crucial to understand what this film is really about. Life does not have a pat ending. The Shakespearean question of "to be or not to be" that Chuck faced on the island turns out to be the question with the easiest answer.

Cast Away

Four and a half Beakers
(out of five)

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