"Life is Like A Box": a review of Cast Away
Zemeckis and Hanks re-team to look at one man - not an "everyman"
MAJOR SPOILER ALERT: As Cast Away has been
in release for a while, I am going to discuss the film from beginning
to end. If you have not seen the film, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!
Let's get one thing
out of the way before we take a look at Cast Away. I am
one of the few people on the planet who did not like Forrest
Gump. The reasons behind this would take another essay to
explain. Just know, from the outset, I was wary of this reunion
of actor and director (and composer and producer and editor and
costume designer, etc.)
My fears were groundless.
Robert Zemeckis has had a varied career. Although he comes from the stable of Spielberg-like directors, only one of his films
has come anywhere near Spielberg's level of success - Forrest
Gump. It was for this film that Zemeckis was awarded the Best
Director Oscar, only twelve months after Spielberg first received
the honor (Schindler's List).
Up to and including Gump, Zemeckis' oeuvre was filled
with comedies; they ranged from adventure comedies (the Back
to the Future series and Romancing the Stone) to animated
slapstick (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) to dark and light
social satires (Death Becomes Her and Gump, respectively).
After his Academy Award triumph, Zemeckis returned three years
later with the best film of his career, Contact - his first
straight dramatic film. After another three years of waiting,
Zemeckis returned with two films in 2000 - What Lies Beneath
and Cast Away.
As most of you would already know (the publicity on this new
film has been in overdrive and sometimes out-of-control), Zemeckis
filmed What Lies Beneath in the twelve months between shooting
the beginning of Cast Away and the end. This allowed Tom
Hanks to lose a lot of weight to show the ravages of time alone
on the deserted island. I believe this kind of split production
schedule is unheard of in Hollywood history. But challenging the
Hollywood system is not unknown territory for Zemeckis. He was
the first to pioneer shooting multiple films back-to-back to save
on costs with the production of Back to the Future, Part II
and Part III together in 1989 & 1990.
Zemeckis is also known for using special effects to enhance
his storytelling. Most of the digital imagining he uses is completely
unobtrusive, but quite necessary for him to get his end result.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? couldn't have been made without
special effects. The last third of Back to the Future, Part
II would be drastically different. Death Becomes Her
would have lost a lot of its satiric edge. But we can see
all the effects in those films. Most of the digital work that
went into Gump and Contact is hard to spot. Sure,
there are moments in both films that use the digital realm to
the full, but so many more scenes in those films are touched up
that you would never know unless it was pointed out. (Check out
the Contact DVD. With three commentaries, it is one of
the most fully-featured discs around - a fascinating look at a
wonderful film.)
Zemeckis has used digital effects in Cast Away, but
again, they are rare very subtly done. The main sequence requiring
special effects is the plane crash near the start of the film.
The rest of the two-and-a-half hour film is shot very simply.
The story does not require beefing up by effects or much dialogue
or even a musical score.
This most barren style of filmmaking is very much a departure
for Zemeckis. To strip back the film, for ninety minutes, to solely
focus on a man alone on an island without any crutches to support
the project, is admirable.
Tom
Hanks has built most of his career around comedy, too. But since
his first Academy Award win in 1993 for Philadelphia,
he has edged slowly into dramatic roles - through Gump
to Apollo 13 to Steven Spielberg's critically-acclaimed
war drama Saving Private Ryan. With his recent Academy
Award nomination for Cast Away, this makes four nominations in eight years. If he wins, he'll be the first actor in history to win three Best Actor Oscars.
Cast Away is Tom Hanks' movie more than anyone
else's. He took the basic premise to screenwriter William Broyles
Junior (Apollo 13, Entrapment and the upcoming Planet
of the Apes remake) and Zemeckis shot the majority of the
movie without much visual flair. The result, Hanks must carry
the movie and he does admirably.
Hanks as Chuck Noland shows a lot of restraint at moments
which could have become melodrama in another actor's hands. His
pathetic cries of "Hello? Is anyone there?" are almost
gut-wrenching. His frustration at breaking open a coconut and
trying to start a fire is superbly rendered on screen.
The film is almost like a solo stage performance complicated
only by the opening and closing passages of the film. There are
just two other noteworthy characters in the film - and one is
not even played by an actor.
Helen Hunt's turn as Noland's girlfriend Kelly Frears is pretty
straight forward. Hunt does her best to make a good impression,
but there is very little for her to do until the end. The fact
that Kelly has remarried makes for an interesting dramatic twist,
but she is still very much only a minor supporting role - even
though the character is an important part of Chuck's years alone
on the island.
The outstanding secondary character of the film is the volleyball
that washes up onto the island in one of the Federal Express boxes.
Named Wilson after the brand name on the ball (not after Hanks'
real-life wife, Rita Wilson, as some people have claimed), this
story-telling device is used to excellent advantage to allow Chuck
to open up about how he's coping on the island. The fact that
an inanimate object can have a life of its own is a credit to
Hanks, Zemeckis and Broyles. The moments between Chuck and Wilson
were the highlights of the film for me. The resolution to that
part of the story was truly moving.
As much as I love actor Nick Searcy (Hanks' brilliant TV mini-series
From the Earth to the Moon and "Seven Days"),
his character - Chuck's best friend Stan - was completely unnecessary.
This is unfortunate, but is certainly emblematic of the problems
I had with the start and the end of the film. I wish they had
pared back these parts to as little as possible for two reasons:
one, I loved being on the island so much I wish we could have
stayed longer and, two, these parts were exceedingly complicated.
To contrast the loneliness of the island, there is a huge Christmas
celebration and a busy scene at a Federal Express centre in Moscow;
bits with Kelly and bits with Stan. I would have prefered they
stick with two things - the job and the girlfriend. They are what
is most important to the story.
Alan Silvestri is a long-time Zemeckis collaborator, having
composed the music for all of Zemeckis' films from 1984's Romancing
the Stone onwards. Cast Away, with its reliance on
Hanks while Chuck is on the island, is pratically devoid of music
from the moment the plane crashes to the scene where Chuck is
on the ocean trying to get back home. This is a primary example
of Zemeckis' choice to strip back the film. Film-goers are used
to a music score accentuating the emotional landscape of the film
and Silvestri is a master of the craft.
Silvestri's most enduring work is the theme from Back to the Future, which was reprised in its two sequels. Nothing
he has done before or since has been quite so memorable, but he
produces solid work as has done for nearly three decades. 2000
was a busy year for Silvestri with four films benefitting from
his years of experience - the two Zemeckis pics What Lies Beneath
and Cast Away, plus Reindeer Games and What Women
Want. These four films demonstrate Silvestri's range: a horror
film, a drama, a thriller and a broad comedy.
His work on Cast Away appears deceptively simple.
Given how little he had to compose, it seems like it may have
been an easy gig. But the single theme he had to construct and
how much resonance this piece of music had to have, shows how
remarkable Silvestri can be.
Next to his outstanding BTTF theme and his marvellous
scores for Contact and The Abyss, Cast Away's
theme has a lot to live up to. How does it compare? Very well.
Writer William Broyles Jr. began writing scripts for the television
series China Beach, beginning with the pilot movie in 1988.
He moved into writing films in 1995, co-scripting Apollo 13
with Al Reinert. Cast Away is only his third film as
screenwriter. He has noted that he spent some time alone on an
island in preparation for writing the script and it shows. The
marvellous details are what keep the audience fascinated. The
"breaking open the coconut" sequence is compelling because
of the details: breaking the coconut all the way open, trying
to use any old stone, breaking the stone and using it to carve
up the coconut, penetrating the coconut at only one point so it
can be utilised again and again.
The weakest moment in the island section of the film is the
moment Chuck begins to open the packages and suddenly has things
that he can use to his advantage. The fact that this seems like
deus ex machina stuff is in perfect contrast to the idea
of having a single package that he does not open. While sustaining
a "what's in there" mystery is nothing new (see: Pulp
Fiction), there is a nice spin on it here because of Chuck's
job and the sub-plot is nicely resolved at the end. That there
might have been something of real worth to him in the Fed Ex package
is interesting and the fact that Chuck continued wanting to do
his job spurred him on to getting home.
While Forrest Gump used Hanks to portray an "everyman"
character - one that took on the troubles of the world, met and
inspired historical figures and lived happily ever after because
he knew no better - Hanks is allowed to play a real human being
in Cast Away. Although the film does shy away from some
moments that could have been truly wonderful (what did he say
to the people that rescued him, how did they convince him to get
on that plane at the end, what was his first meal on the ship,
did he ever tell anyone about Wilson?), what we get is a look
at how a person who is so steeped in the trappings of modern day
life would still be able to survive without any of this stuff.
Is this film a luddites dream? Perhaps, but is certainly about
more than living your life without a beeper.
Chuck's revelation at the end about continuing to live life
even when it seemed out of his hands is an interesting place to
finish off. It's an ending more challenging than most mainstream
audiences expect, though not overly so. Cast Away is one
of those films that seemed doomed by its trailer. The fact the
Chuck returned home was no revelation to anyone who had seen those
ads. And Zemeckis bowed to studio pressure to advertise the film
that way, believing that is what the audiences wants. The ending
is more satisfying than those ads would have us believe, unless
you are in the camp of people who hoped Chuck and Kelly would
end up living together happily ever after.
— Keith Gow
