A New Stage In Film Making (Small spoiler included)

Rating: 8/10 (1 January 2001)

When I heard that half the film is Tom Hanks staring left and right, not saying a word, I was somewhat sceptical. But what I discovered was not only a film with 3/4 of it devoted to a speechless Hanks, but also a new stage in film making all together. I'm not only talking about the silence and the reliance on facial expression, for a large part of the film, to convey Hanks's emotions in crucial scenes (things like that have been done before, the best example I can think of, being Das Boot and its focus on the desolation of silence within a crippled submarine and the focus on the faces of the sailors to help the audience understand the situation as it stood), but I'm also referring to the filmming in two halves. In the beginning the audience encounters a plump and jolly, upperclass Hanks. He's focussed, confident, and exudes an air of upper class ease. He then is stranded on the island and still seems quite out of place. He may be wearing tattered clothing and trying his hardest to become Robinson Crusoe, but it still seems that he is nothing more than a man torn away from the world he once trusted. But after the movie's split, when Hanks is reintroduced to us as a much thinner and naturally experiences man, the audience encounters a completely new situation. No longer is this the overweight executive that we knew from before, he instead has become a full fledged survivor, unlike anyone on that syndicated island that captured the hearts of America during the summer. We then see this new man put back into the world he once was part of and now he doesn't seem to fit in here. The audience is almost as uneasy seeing "castaway" Tom back in suburbia, as they were when "executive" Tom found himself on the island. It is amazing to have seen Tom Hanks completely transform his entire body and persona within a movie. This being said, I can't think of any other film where this happens so naturally. Hanks is a master, Zemeckis is fantastic, and the film is great.