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Cast Away [DVD]

Screenplay : William Broyles, Jr.

MPAA Rating : PG-13

Year of Release : 2000

Stars : Tom Hanks (Chuck Noland), Helen Hunt (Kelly Frears), Chris Noth (Jerry Lovett), Nick Searcy (Stan)

It is no small irony in Robert Zemeckis' Cast Away that Chuck Norland, a FedEx efficiency expert whose professional life revolves around the clock, winds up stranded on a deserted island where time is quite literally meaningless. Norland, as played by Tom Hanks, is a driven professional who is sent around the world to ensure that various FedEx offices are working at optimum capacity and maximum speed. "Don't ever make the sin of turning your back on the clock," he instructs a group of Russian employees. One night, the plane on which he is flying crashes into the South Pacific ocean, and Norland manages to survive long enough to wash ashore on a small, tropical island.

It is on this island that the majority of the film takes place, and it is testament to the acting prowess and undeniable humanity exuded by Tom Hanks that he can carry long stretches of the film literally by himself, without even the aid of a musical score. Once on the island, Zemeckis removes all extradiagetic sound, only allowing the natural noises of the island--the wind in the trees, the repetitive crashing of the waves on the shore--to fill the soundtrack. It enhances the literalness of Norland's physical isolation, constantly reminding us that there is no one else there.

For close to an hour, we watch as Norland learns to survive on his own, fashioning a tent out of his life raft, creating make-shift shoes out of his pant legs, and learning the easiest ways to crack open a coconut. When various FedEx boxes wash ashore from the crash, he opens them and makes use of their content, from videotapes to ice skates. Because we have seen Norland in action in his professional life, it is not hard to imagine that he would be a dogged survivor. He doesn't necessarily have the know-how, but he has the determination and the will.

Norland ends up spending four years on the island, and the physical transformation through which Hanks went in order to dramatize that passage of time is astounding. In something of a reverse of Robert De Niro's transformation in Raging Bull (1980), in which he went from a lean, wiry prize fighter to an overweight has-been, Hanks transforms himself from a pale, meaty professional man of the city who has obviously eaten too many rich meals and spent too much time sitting on international flights to a taut, browned, muscular survivor. Zemeckis filmed Cast Away with this transformation in mind, taking a year off in the middle of production so that Hanks could lose 50 pounds and grow out his hair and beard. The result is nothing less than astonishing, and it is nothing special effects could have produced.

Yet, the problem with Cast Away is that it doesn't have much to do with Norland once he is off the island. In the opening scenes, the film establishes his hectic, time-crunch lifestyle and his relationship with his serious girlfriend, Kelly (Helen Hunt), who is a doctoral student. They are contemplating marriage, and right before he leaves, Norland gives Kelly a small box that is surely an engagement ring, asking her to hold on to it until he comes back. Little does she know how long it will be.

In the last portion of the film, Norland returns to civilization to discover what has changed in his absence. Although the script by William Broyles, Jr., is excellent in its existential minimalism during the island period, it falters badly at the end by missing a prime dramatic opportunity in depicting Norland's return to his previous life. Rather than showing us how he becomes reacclimated to a cushy Western lifestyle after four years spent in complete isolation fighting for his very survival, we are given a simple title card that reads "Four Weeks Later" over a shot of a clean-cut, bathed, and completely calm and well-adjusted (although still thinner) Norland on a plane.

What happened during those four weeks? What his reaction to his first human contact in more than 1,500 days? What questions did he ask? How did he get used to eating cooked food again? Did he need any psychological counseling? Did he have nightmares? How long did it take to shave off four years worth of scraggly facial hair?

Unfortunately, none of these questions are answered in the rush to get Norland and Kelly back into the same room together. Thankfully, the scenes between them are well-written and handled poignantly and realistically by Hanks and Hunt. They suggest the pain of time lost and decisions that can never be reversed, and even though the end is a bit forced in its drive to conclude on an upbeat note, it more or less works.

Despite these faults, Cast Away is still a film of notable merit. Director Robert Zemeckis, who reteams with Hanks for the first time since they both won Oscars for Forrest Gump (1994), keeps the film's visual style rather simple (except for a silly gimmick in the opening scene that depicts the travel of a FedEx package from the package's point of view). In the island scenes, he is content to let the camera lens absorb the wild beauty of nature, emphasizing Norland's smallness in the grand scheme of things. His staging of the plane crash is magnificently terrifying--it is one of the most memorable disaster sequences in recent memory.

Hanks, from whom audiences always expect a great performance, does not disappoint. His one-man show is captivating precisely because it is kept low-key. He has the occasional dramatic outbursts, one in anger when he cuts his hand while trying to light a fire, one of exuberant joy when he finally gets the first started ("I have made fire!" he proclaims to no one). Mostly, it is the primal urge to survive that drives the simple narrative, and Hanks embodies that drive perfectly.

Even in his darkest moment or when he is reduced to holding conversations with a volleyball on which he has painted a face with his own blood, there is never any doubt that this man can and will survive. It is not because there is anything special about him, but rather it is because of his very lack of specialty. He is simply a member of the human race whose basest drive is stay alive no matter what.

©2001 James Kendrick