CAST AWAY ---------
Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) emphasizes the digital clock just installed in Fed Ex's newest office in Russia to his new hires in training. He calls his girlfriend Kelly (Helen Hunt) to rhapsodize over the fact that he's sorting packages within the shadows of Red Square, and that he'll be home for Christmas in Memphis in eighteen hours. At the extensive family dinner table, the troubleshooter is beeped for another emergency halfway around the world, forcing him to exchange gifts with Kelly in their car at the airport. She gives him a pocket watch containing her picture that had belonged to her grandfather. He gives her a package the size of a ring box, waves and declares 'I'll be right back!' in director Robert Zemeckis' "Cast Away."
Of course, Chuck isn't right back. The private FedEx plane he's on begins to encounter mechanical difficulties in a storm over the Pacific. Chuck risks hurtling objects to secure his new pocketwatch, then watches the sea approaching through the cockpit windshield. Miraculously, he finds his way out of the plane and inflates a life raft, which pulls him to the stormy surface. Luck is again on his side when he washes up on an abandoned beach. However, he quickly discovers the island is uninhabitted, so constructs a large help sign on the beach and begins to gather wreckage, packages and the one dead body which wash ashore in the aftermath of his crash.
Survival means learning how to open coconuts, catch fish, and make fire. As it begins to dawn on Chuck that his chances of rescue are slight (he figures out that the search area must be twice the area of Texas), he starts to open the FedEx packages he's neatly stacked and protected (ever the company man). A punk rock dress is turned into a fishing net; figure skates are used as cutting tools, and eventually, for dental surgery; video cassettes provide binding material. A volleyball, marked with Chuck's own handprint in blood, looks like a face and becomes Chuck's confident, Wilson. All the while, though, that precious picture of Kelly beckons and Chuck knows survival isn't enough - he has to attempt to save himself or die trying.
"Cast Away's" already gathered reams of press during its production due to the unusual nature of its shooting schedule. First, Hanks gained weight, ballooning over 200 lbs. The first half of the film was shot, then went on hiatus as Zemeckis went off and made "What Lies Beneath," while Hanks dieted almost fifty pounds off his frame and let his hair and beard grow wild. (The transition is handled unimaginatively in the film with a 'four years later' title card.)
Hanks deserves a lot of credit for tackling this role, not only for the physical hardships he endured. Yes, it's Best Actor nomination (and possibly a third win) time for America's favorite thespian again. For almost two hours of the film's 140 minute running time, Hanks is alone. His Chuck Nolan begins the film as a company guy who's always too on the move to stop and smell the roses. While he truly loves Kelly, he has trouble expressing emotion. On the island, he goes through hope, despair, frustration, industriousness, creativity, cowardice and courage. The man brings tears to your eyes over a *volleyball*.
Of the barely-there support, Hunt is fine. Better is Nick Searcy as Chuck's buddy Stan, who's losing his beloved wife of many years to cancer. Searcy is true support to Hanks, playing a man more in touch with life, ironically through approaching death, than pre-accident Chuck. And let's not forget Wilson, probably one of the best supporting inanimate object in film history.
Zemeckis' production is top notch, with ace lensing by Don Burgess ("What Lies Beneath") and tight editting by Arthur Schmidt. Alan Silvestri's score is simple, yet effective. Screenplay by Willian Broyles Jr. shows provides nice grace notes, such as the (Guardian) angels' wings which embellish the one package Chuck doesn't open, providing a connection from film's opening to closing. Time is measured in seconds, then in months.
"Cast Away" is a reflection upon what's really important in life and a showcase for Hanks' acting abilities.
B+
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