Very impressive

Rating: 10/10 (28 December 2000)

I wasn't sure what to expect from this movie. i kind of assumed it would be a melodrama not unlike Forrest Gump. And that is how it began. I thought it was going to be a very formulaic movie about a man who survives for a while on a desert island, escapes, and then reclaims his love. Fortunately, it is much more complicated than that.
Zemeckis and Hanks take a lot of risks in this film. There is a great lack of dialogue. This will alienate a large portion of the audience who is used to inane dialogue. They do find a way around it after a short while, by making a volleyball into a nonspeaking character with whom Hanks can converse. This does not particularly help the majority of the audience to get more involved in the film. In fact, to most people, it provided comic relief. There were many in the theater who laughed whenever the volleyball, Wilson, made an appearance. To a certain extent, it was supposed to be funny. actually, there were several parts that made me laugh. To a certain other extent, they were completely serious.
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several important critics have claimed that the last segment of the film is anticlimactic, where Hanks is rescued and has to reconcile with Helen Hunt, the love of his life, after a prolonged period of mourning and supposedly false hope married another man. Roger Ebert expressed his dislike for this section of the film. I don't think he or any other critics with similar criticisms were paying any attention. Yes, the survival stuff on the island was very exciting and interesting to watch, but the final sequence anchors the film and makes it truly special. Hanks' meeting with Hunt is so overwhelmingly powerful that it brought me to tears. For God's sake, the only thing that kept him alive on the island was her picture. Don't you realize that to leave us without a resolution on the most important plot point is going to disable the film profoundly? The scene where they meet is masterful. It is extremely realistic and subtle in its emotions. This must be Tom Hank's best performance, and probably Hunt's also (although she was masterful in As Good As It Gets, too). She is not in Cast Away for very long, but I think she should be considered for an Oscar. And since Hanks has won for far less good roles (i.e., Philadelphia, one of the most terrible pieces of garbage ever made in Hollywood), to not nominate him would be sad, and I am usually a Hanks detractor (I like him, but find him too unaffecting usually).
The finale of Cast Away has been equally debated. In my opinion, it was a small, symbolic, but tacked-on event: the delivery of a package that he decided not to open on the island because it had angel wings drawn on the side of the box. I don't care how symbolically the character interpreted the wings as being, that package could have contained something very useful and it would be ridiculous not to open it. I am very glad that the film did not end with Hanks trying to get the woman in the truck whose package he delivered. The real ending is actually quite beautiful. Roger Ebert calls the final moment of the film, a smile, "forced whimsy." I did not notice a smile. I did not interpret his expression as a smile in the least. Instead, it was a look of farewell. His character is now letting go. He is choosing to no longer try to run his own fate, but just allow himself to be taken along where the world takes him. Through his ordeal, he knows that it is foolish to try to control fate. The final decision he has to make is which of the four ways to go. It ends quite beautifully.
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I do have a couple of complaints: the film begins very poorly with some very silly and formulaic scenes that establish Hanks' businessman ethics. If you ever find yourself on your knee outside of a car window about to propose to your girlfriend mere minutes before you step on a plane, stop and think about it. You are obviously setting yourself up for an imminent death. Please avoid this situation at all costs. The movie plot gods will strike you down, I promise you.
The biggest pain in the neck in this movie was the CONSTANT, NEVERENDING stream of product placements in this film. It should have had a large credit at the beginning of the film: Producer - Fed Ex. Tom Hanks' character is a Fed Ex exec, and the beginning of the film spends an outrageous amount of time telling the audience how good Fed Ex is. "87 hours? We might as well be the U.S. Mail." I once ordered something to be delivered by Fed Ex. They came four days after the company had told me they had shipped it. They came to my door, rang the doorbell which I cannot hear in my room, and walked away without even knocking at the door. I later found a note on my door that said that they would try again on the next delivery day, Monday, three days later, between the hours of 8am and 4pm. The U.S. Mail generally arrives at my house approximately 3 days after a company ships it, and even on a saturday.
The only other problem is an annoying third act speech, the sort of speech that reveals the point of the movie, even though everyone in the audience should have already figured the meaning out already. I still give this film a 9/10. It is the best Hollywood film of the year, and is the only Oscar type film to deserve even consideration for most anything.