Counteracting Loneliness

Rating: 9/10 (16 January 2015)

So much has been written about the performance of Tom Hanks. He is so convincing that for a while I actually thought this had happened to him. This is a story of loneliness. The Robinson Crusoe aspect is slowly developed as Hanks employs what knowledge he has to do the rudimentary things that are required to survive. Crusoe has Friday; Hanks has Wilson. The despair that develops as one begins to realize that he may die, never seeing another human being or experiencing some tenderness, is so disturbing. When Hanks walks around, arms in the air, announcing to the world that he has made fire, it's a primitive conquest that seems so grand yet so minuscule. The final scene in the film is so gut wrenching. No man is an island but a part of a greater universe. I'm not speaking from a religious foundation but that which is within us.