Cast Away
“I borrowed it, but I love that the kid’s now crippled.”
Cast Away has always checked a lot of boxes for me and it’s just an absolute bitch to find streaming somewhere, so when I saw it on Hulu this month I knew I’d have to watch it. It was made in the year I was born, it stars Tom Hanks, it’s based on survival on a tropical island, it’s just all things I enjoy. I’ve also heard good things every time I bring it up, so this is super exciting for me.
Not at all the start to the film I expected. I knew the film had something to do with FedEx from the blurb but WOW does Chuck care for FedEx. The Christmas dinner scene says a lot about the kinds of people we’re dealing with, the most family oriented day of the year and Chuck has to dip out to Malaysia and not a soul seems bothered, not even his woman. Not because they don’t like him, it’s just the people they are. I mean listen to the topics talked about at dinner. His stay on the island is the more unanimously important part of the film though. It really feels like the trials and tribulations of survival, pure survival. Chuck gets all the sides of the coin and it mimics the same kinds of things we all feel. For instance, Chuck has a really shitty few hours when he first spots a ship that could help him. It’s a brutal sequence of events, and it very much imitates that feeling of everything bad piling on at once. So much persistence and will to live goes into Chuck’s time on that tiny island. The fire scenes encapsulate the whole movie, literally the whole movie and everything I just said. The last hour is something different, a man changed at his core forever longing for a specific person. I’ll never be able to do that section of the movie justice in this review.
Tom Hanks can act his ass off when he wants to. You’d need to convince me the entire beginning isn’t just product placement for FedEx with Tom Hanks as the salesman, it’s a brilliant job. Talk about selling his first few minutes on the island as well, I’d call it a very human reaction to what he’s gone through. A small bit of foreshadowing I caught was Chuck wetting his face in the plane bathroom shortly before the crash and ripping off his Band-Aid. Oh brother this guy was about to get wet, and ripping off the Band-Aid certainly foreshadowed the removal of protection. I also adore the way the film goes from fast paced and talkative to straight up desolite as a reflection of the change in life that Chuck just went through. The level of humbling that accompanies the discovery of Albert was done so well, the slow panning shot of him wearing that man's shoes tells you exactly where he’s at in this tale. The scene where he finally creates fire after making a friend in his bloody volleyball is borderline emotional. To him, his chances at survival are better but that takes a backseat to the fact he feels more comfortable now. He now has a friend, somebody who will listen to him, and a remnant of society in his ability to cook with fire. He then immediately feels capable of getting down to brass tax with his buddy and finds the strength to openly talk about his dim future. Then, boom, he’s a different man entirely. Like I said earlier, not a chance I summarize the end of the film well enough to do it justice. I did like the literal fork in the road at the end though.
I loved this movie, like I truly loved it. It’s a five star movie for me I think. It actually knocked my socks off, it delivered on everything I wanted Cast Away to be and more. I have to give Robert Zemeckis his flowers. I know he’s done quite a bit in the world of cinema but this is so special. It’s hard for me to believe that this is one of his “lesser” megahit movies.
Also, did not expect the reference to the Super Bowl where the Titans lost by a yard.