Pathos is not Deep, but The Nesting Is

Rating: Null/10 (24 December 2000)

(Spoilers herein.)
I write this on opening day for this film, while it is still an event. Lots of people are excited, but when significant talent comes close to creating something important, I use a higher standard. There are some fine elements and moments in this film, but the total disappoints.
The best two moments are the fire creation sequence, and the plane crash. The firemaking episode is the center of the film as I note below. The plane crash is as harrowing as it gets (speaking as one who was touched by such an event) and supplants the equally person-centered crash in `Fearless.'
Scene-wise, the most unsuccessful episode is near the beginning when Hanks gives a motivational speech to Muscovites about the importance of time. His good guy persona keeps him from convincing here. Contrast this to a similar but crackling speech by Alec Baldwin in `Glengary Glen Ross.' I blame Zemeckis for this, exhibiting his execrable `What Lies Beneath' as proof. It was filmed between the first and second halves of `Castaway.' He just doesn't understand global scope - all his skills are local.
My disappointment has to do with the point of the film. A biting existential angst is eschewed for a more desperate pathos, in order to lower the risk of the film I suppose. But what's left is empty. There's a small nobility in leaving the old girlfriend to her husband but this only incidental. John Sayles' `Limbo' used the same story to much better effect because he wasn't so namby-pamby about despair.
On the other hand, what's remarkable about this film is the way it is structured: it has a many-tiered frame. Often a film is bracketed as a story (`The Princess Bride ` comes to mind), but scriptwriters use all sorts of brackets and here pull out all the stops. It is an elegant structure.
The obvious bracket is the package. We see it being picked up from a pretty (we find out) Texas artist in the opening shots. She paints a distinctive winged logo on the box. This box is either returned by the adulterous husband, or a similar box is sent in reply. It appears on the island, inspires Hanks, and is returned at the end of the film, presaging a possible new life. The content of the box, created by an artist, is metaphorically the film.
But there are more brackets, both outside and inside of this one.
Inside, we have the bracket of the `outside' world, from which he comes to the island and to whence he returns. This is primarily a sound bracket, contrasting the sounds of ships and jets to those of nature. And within that, we have the creation of Wilson by Hanks, just as the screenwriter creates Hanks' character. Wilson is the star, truly the one being with no life, no future. His creation (with fire) is a clue that Hanks will get some distance on his own life. I suspect that much of Wilson is on the editroom floor when the decision was made to tone down from despairing angst to just pathos. Too bad.
(Another internal bracket is more of a small plot symmetry. Hanks confronts a painful tooth (`truth' since Lewis Carroll). His dentist is Spaulding (mirrors Wilson as alterego) is on the `outside' (mirroring location) and sets up his exgirlfriend's husband (mirroring relationship). Its clumsy as it is, and probably had a less film-schoolish feel in the original script.)

Outside, we have more brackets too. The film leverages Hanks' role in real life as everyman by setting it at Christmas, and inviting the Christmas audience in. We literally bracket the film with our own lives, a point I'm sure the writer wanted to make.
Two other virtual exterior brackets are worth noting. The `Imagemovers' production company is a very clever conception, entirely congruent with the use Fedex is put here as the vehicle for connection. Also, a much overlooked element of movies is the font design of the titles. This film is very clear about titles; there is no visual prelude or underlude. You have the titles, then the action, then the titles again on black.
Font design is a non-trivial art. Tied up in the creation of display fonts is a deep hardwiring in the brain about communication, eons deeper than cinematic conventions. I know that extraordinary effort often goes into the design of fonts for major films, as the effect is extremely powerful, albeit subliminal. If you get a chance to notice this font, it is an ambiguous design, half in the calligraphic world (human, nature, free) and half in the chiseled world (civilized, formal, self-aware). But the blurring switches from side to side for each character. An apt bracket.
Hanks understood all this nesting, I'm sure. I wish he hadn't squandered the opportunity. But because he performs with such commitment as an actor, we'r e prone to forgive him for his lack of courage as a producer. With `Joe vs the Volcano' in his past, he should have been more adventuresome in commissioning the script.