Cast Away

Tom Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis, who worked together to good effect in “ Forrest Gump,” team up again in “Cast Away.” No more or less than a latter-day Robinson Crusoe story, the movie is expertly made and quite absorbing. Hanks plays Chuck Noland, a mid-level functionary for Federal Express. His life is driven by the clock, and his mission is to impart that ethos to those around him. When his plane crashes in the Pacific, he is washed ashore on a deserted island, and must find the wherewithal to survive. The man who was always battling the clock now has nothing but time. The first section of the movie is odd, playing like an extended FedEx commercial (and I have no idea how they convinced FedEx to let them use their name). It also goes on much too long; everyone in the theater knows the premise of the picture, so the set-up could have been much swifter.

Still, it is enjoyable to watch the small details of Noland’s life--the bandage on his thumb, his toothache, the pocket watch his girlfriend Kelly (Hunt, again underused) gives him--and try to guess how they will figure in his survival later. But then Zemeckis gets down to business, first with the terrifying depiction of the plane crash, then with the long middle section of the film, in which Noland must struggle to survive, both emotionally and physically. This is by far the picture’s most successful and compelling section, and Zemeckis and writer William Broyles, Jr. (who reportedly spent a few weeks on a desert island himself to research the script) are in top form. It is thrilling, in a way, to watch Noland gradually learn to master his environment, to move, as it were, through the stages of human development, from stone tools, to fire, to art. Noland starts out as a nice but slightly klutzy bear of a guy, and his hard-won competence and his will to survive are, not to put too fine a point on it, rather inspiring. For a while after he lands on the island, FedEx packages from the downed plane keep washing up on shore like cruel and relentless reminders of his past life.

A true company man, at first he resists tampering with them, but of course eventually he must, and as he opens each box you can practically see the wheels of his brain spinning, calculating how to use the items within. Over time, he goes slightly mad, as most of us would in such circumstances. It is intriguing to watch a long stretch of a movie with no dialogue. Hanks mutters things here and there, but mostly to a volleyball which has washed up on the shore and which he has painted with his own blood to resemble a face (he calls it “Wilson,” for obvious reasons). Zemeckis must rely almost entirely on visual storytelling here, and he is in excellent command of the material. We can practically feel every one of Noland’s failures and triumphs. Although the challenges he faces are fairly standard for the survival genre, they are presented with an immediacy that allows us to experience them in a visceral way. (It is obvious, though, that Noland was never an Eagle Scout, or he would have known how to do the fire thing much more easily.) In this regard Hanks was the perfect choice for the role, because no other leading actor quite manages to capture ordinary humanity the way Hanks does.

He is a superstar who doesn’t seem like a superstar, and he is a fine, intelligent actor as well. Casting some chisel-jawed hunk in the role would never have allowed us to feel the events so intensely. It takes a special kind of actor to carry an entire movie. Hanks fits the bill, and a good thing too, because for most of “Cast Away” he is all we have to look at. That he manages to make it so compelling is a tribute not only to his screen presence, but to his dedication to craft as well. By now everyone has probably heard that Zemeckis shot the first part of the picture, then went away for a year or so to shoot another picture (“What Lies Beneath”) while Hanks lost 50 pounds and grew his hair and beard in order to look the part of the castaway. Hanks is the most accessible of stars; he seems like someone we might know, and as we watch Noland struggle, it is hard not to wonder, “Could I do it? Could I survive if I were marooned on a desert island?” Tom Hanks is everyman; he stands in for all of us.

Unfortunately, “Cast Away” cannot sustain the island section’s level of intensity through to the end. In fairness, doing so would probably have been impossible. We cannot help but feel let down by the rather mundane events of Noland’s life after he is rescued. Perhaps, in a way, this is the picture’s biggest success, because it makes us feel, in a very dilute form to be sure, what a real-life survivor might experience after the ultimate event. Hanks projects an air of dislocation and distance that seem quite authentic. At his welcome home party he ruefully clicks a butane match, comparing the ridiculous simplicity of it to the blood he shed trying to create a fire on his island. The previews for “Cast Away” suggested that the filmmakers were more interested in the exploration of what happens to Noland after his return. As it turns out, they don’t have a good handle on that, and the ending is something of a disappointment. It contains no revelation or insight, other than the fact that it is good to be alive. It is not even clear what Noland has learned from his experience (aside from the very practical aspects of survival). The picture would have had more lasting impact had it truly explored the changes that a near death experience has on man (see 1993’s underrated “ Fearless,” starring Jeff Bridges). As it is, Hanks and Zemeckis must settle for an adventure story; a well-talked and finely crafted one, to be sure, but no more. (1/6/2001)