So, I find myself in a Holiday Inn Express on our way back to Miami watching Cast Away on the biggest TV I've ever seen in a motel or hotel. I've seen this movie before, but it's probably been over two decades, and I have a terrible memory.
Warning: This review has spoilers, because everybody already knows exactly what happens in Cast Away by now.
Sometimes I think Tom Hanks isn't an especially great actor for how popular he is, because he's not extremely expressive, but this movie reminds me of why he actually is a great actor. He really takes you into the movie (as opposed to taking you out of it); he just doesn't overdo it. Sometimes he's subtle, such as his body language and facial expression while the pilots are trying to get in touch with Air Traffic Control and not succeeding: you can tell he's not quite sure the situation is dire, but he's wondering. (I think credit for this partially goes to the director, too.)
The movie moves kind of slowly, if you really think about it, but it's not actually boring. Not a lot of things happen per unit time, yet it's still interesting, probably because when trapped on a deserted island, everything you do can be close to being a life-and-death situation.
One thing that kind of bugs me or at least disappoints me about the movie is that you never get to find out why the plane suddenly went down. I mean, I know they were struggling in the storm, but they were flying along relatively fine until the everything suddenly went haywire in an instant. Oh, now I just got to a point in the movie I'd forgotten: we find out that experts never determined why the plane went down. So that's better, it makes it an actual plot point.
Another thing in the film that stood out to me is that just before he gets rescued, I don't know if it's just me or if it was intentional, but there's a moment where you're not sure if he's going to get rescued or die at sea. It's perfectly ambiguous as he swims out away from his makeshift raft to chase after Wilson just as he gets close to the being saved, as at one point he drops beneath the surface. I've never decided whether this was good story-telling or needlessly contrived emotional manipulation. But I guess that's me: I'm not particularly fond of suspense, nor of sad stories. But now I just got to that point in the movie, and it turns out it was more suspenseful in my memory than it was on second watching. I was fairly different 24 years ago.
It's poignant how close a bond he developed with Wilson, how important it was to him/how seriously he took it, and how often he talked to it, as if it were a real being. It shows length a human will go to and the insanity when they're deprived of social interaction for years. We're social animals above all else.
Come to think of it, the timing of his losing Wilson was significant: sometimes we have to get rid of the old, such as old habits that once kept us alive, in order to embrace the new.
I think the most powerful takeaway from this movie is probably its illustration of the strong human drive to survive: he keeps himself alive for four years on a deserted island, and then eventually makes it back to civilization. Oh, I see now that he talks a little bit about that after he's rescued. He just knew he had to "keep breathing."
The other strongest takeaway, I think, is the existentialism of the end of the movie, when he goes back to his previous wife and she's with another guy, and he has no idea where to go from there. He stands at a literal and a metaphorical crossroads, then the credits roll. And, like he said earlier, his plan was to continue to just keep breathing.
I hadn't remembered that his finding out that he wasn't going to be back together with her being such a warm encounter. I'm glad we find out that he was still essentially the love of her life—she's even tempted to drive off with him happily ever after, she kisses him, she hugs him at length, etc. (not in that order). That's a lot better than what I had remembered: he shows up at her door, she's surprised, they talk for a bit, she tells him she's already with someone else, and he drives away. I'd be much more satisfied with the actual closure in the movie if I were Tom Hanks' character (what was his name, anyway?) than with what I had thought happened.
So, how would I rate this movie? All in all, while it's a bit harsh to sit through someone being alone for at least half a movie, and the plot seems a bit thin if you don't count all the things he does while he's stuck on the island, if I were Siskel & Ebert, I'd give this movie two thumbs up, despite myself. I'd also be two people; imagine the parapsychological experiments I could conduct... and also I'd get to eat twice as much food. Oh, and not to mention this probably would have been a much better review. Win/win.
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