A lesson for all of us, who do not enjoy life today as it happens

Rating: 9/10 (23 December 2007)

A movie of depth at many human levels, Cast Away was a unique film among the many of the great films of the 20th Century. And what a great film and story to start the 21st Century, this new Century that is certain to hold rapid change for the human endurance, as was the last. The main character, Chuck Noland lives in the fast lane, his life but a blur, representing a person who is but a cast away from family and life, a runner in a global world of change and commerce, with little time to ponder the important things in life, putting all the important things aside. But as fate would have it, Chuck Noland is cast away into another world, one of loneliness, and stripped to the bare essentials of life, in a quest for survival on a remote island, he is now a cast away from the civilization. Apart from the life he took for granted, and his love, he is stripped to the bare essentials, with only the slim hope that he might one day see his fiancé again, and not take everything for granted as he did before. With little chance of rescue, he carries the human quality of hope. Hope for rescue, and hope to see his fiancé and family once again, and this hope is granted through a sail, which starts him back towards a return to civilization.
But his human struggle was not over. Upon Chuck Noland's return he must again cast himself away from the love he once knew, and cast away a love he once knew, that carried him through all those years of loneliness. Once again, in the middle of all of modern civilization, Chuck Noland is again a cast away from the life he knew, and is alone again. But as fate would have it, he would find himself again with hope, as he struggles to return to the meaning of life. and like the winds that helped rescue him from that desolate island, he again finds hope in the emblem, an image of angels wings that had sustained his existence for a very long time. And in this moment, among the empty expanse of land, not ocean, he once again casts away his past, and must begin a new life, where time is not a master, having learned to enjoy life as it comes. It is this meaning that all humans must learn, or suffer being a cast away in the sea of humanity, in a world of sea of change.
A story perhaps, but maybe there is something more meaningful for all of us...and a lesson we could all learn easily.