The return of the silent film (sort of)

Rating: 10/10 (3 January 2001)

Warning: this may contain spoilers.
If you watch the current trailer for "Cast Away," you might go in expecting this Indiana Jones-style exotic action/adventure film. Dreamworks is selling something they're not delivering on, which is a mistake. No matter how good the film is, many viewers are going to feel duped. I didn't. Yes, it moved slower than I thought it would. That's only because I've come to expect differently from a major studio. Films that seem to have a lot at stake tend to worry too much about the audience feeling things like bored and impatient. The result is a rushed story that ends up disappointing anyway.
"Cast Away" actually trusts its audience. That's why at the end I really felt like applauding. I'd just been shown something great and meaningful. Except, to my surprise, no one else clapped (I am by nature shy, so I let the opportunity pass). I can't say I blame anyone either. There is so much bad filmmaking out there and people see so many films, so when a film of true quality surfaces, people don't recognize it. Quality work is so rare, it becomes unfamiliar. What this means is that "Cast Away" probably won't be a huge success, unfortunately. Why? Well, because it's (gulp) too good.
I've read that the concept was Tom Hanks' idea, who produces and plays Chuck Noland, the film's subject. But the greatness of this movie really begins with its script, by William Broyles. I certainly hope enough people in the Academy will recognize this. Probably not, because it's not flashy. It doesn't contain a lot of great dialogue. It isn't really even that clever. But Broyles does the most difficult thing a writer has to do, which is, tell a story that doesn't need words. I'm waiting for the day a director makes a silent movie that a major distributor takes a chance on. The motion picture medium was created without spoken words in mind. "Cast Away" could be a Christmas present to the hearing impaired. I believe they would see the exact same story as anyone else, with no subtitles. The words Broyles does write are great. They do what they're supposed to do: stay out of the way.
Many people who see this will wonder what happened to the score. There is one somewhere, but it doesn't show up very often. For good reason, director Robert Zemeckis (who's managed to make both one of the year's worst films, "What Lies Beneath," and one of the year's best), uses music sparingly. The lack of music, especially during the island portion of the film, is just as effective as the best John Williams composition would have been. For this entire island portion of the film, interrupted only briefly when Chuck sets sail on his raft of tree branches, all we hear are the natural sounds of the island and one man's voice.
Hanks has already won two Oscars. Now he's grown even further as an actor. This is such a huge role. I mean, the guy IS the movie. The odds of him not winning a third Oscar are slim (no pun intended). True, the most demanding portion of the role is spent talking to a volleyball named Wilson. This is one part of the film that really sticks with you, the image of a face painted in blood on a piece of sports equipment. For four-odd years, Chuck is able to keep his body alive through sheer human ingenuity. But it won't mean a thing if his mind doesn't survive as well. That's why he creates Wilson. Many viewers will think Chuck is going insane. On the contrary, it's merely survival. It may be the most powerful performance by an inanimate object ever.
"Cast Away" makes you think about a lot of things. Chuck's life before he was stranded on the island was controlled by time and technology. He has so little time, he uses things like pagers and cell phones just to keep his relationships alive. He's also a trainer for Fed Ex so, as with most of today's professions, he relies heavily on the advances in technology that human beings have made. When we watch him find ways to survive upon being stranded and completely isolated, it's only then we see what a human being is truly capable of. THIS is how far we've come as a species. It's a not-so-subtle point the film makes very well.
The most important thing that the film has to teach is so great. That thing is this: sometimes the only way to know what you're really living for is to have everything taken away. Only then will you know what you want returned to you. All Chuck wants back is his girlfriend, Kelly (Helen Hunt). When Chuck returns to find that the world has moved on without him, that the love of his life has moved on without him, the true test of survival begins. Chuck is now a phantom. He wonders if he even has a place in the world anymore. But how many of us feel that way without the benefit of being stranded on a tropical island alone for four years?
And there it is. Extraordinary. (applause)
Grade: A