Cast Away Brings Out The Very Best In Robert Zemeckis And Tom Hanks

There’s a sense of sadness in watching Cast Away. Not all of it comes from the movies poignant moments. Primarily, that sadness comes from knowing that, after Cast Away, director Robert Zemeckis would get sucked down a motion-capture hole. Starting with The Polar Express, the man responsible for Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit would begin a cold streak that’s still going on to this day. Zemeckis was never a perfect filmmaker (just ask Back to the Future: Part II) but his modern duds of Welcome to Marwen have sunk Zemeckis to new lows. Oh well, at least we’ll always have Cast Away.

Cast Away focuses on Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks), a time-fixated FredEx employee whose always traveling around the world and keeping as productive as possible. He may be busy but he  still maintains a fine relationship with his partner, Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt). On Christmas Eve 1995, Noland departs for a seemingly routine plane ride to Malaysia. On the flight over, something goes horribly wrong. The plane crashes into the ocean, leaving Noland the only survivor. Now stuck at sea, Noland eventually lands on a deserted island. Alone, with no way to communicate back home, he’s going to have to survive on this island. The man who was always racing the clock now has all the time in the world and absolutely no resources.

I didn’t just bring up post-Cast Away Zemeckis projects at the outset of this review randomly. Those 21^st-century Zemeckis films are defined by a sense of excess. Characters are always shouting, the camera is always on the move, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is doing an over-the-top French accent one step removed from Pepe le Pew. Recent Zemeckis movies throw everything at the wall but rarely come up with anything all that interesting. It’s just a bunch of noise and visual effects trying to keep you distracted long enough to not realize how empty everything is. With Cast Away, Zemeckis can’t just lean on overdoses of chaos to serve as a substitute for an actually compelling script. He’s stuck with just a man, a volleyball, and an island.

The restrained nature of Cast Away (ingrained into a screenplay penned by William Broyles Jr.) brings out the very best in Zemeckis as a filmmaker. A scene where Noland travels to the highest point of the island and looks around at his isolated surroundings, for example, makes use of minimal cuts and quiet camera movement. This allows the expansiveness of the nearby ocean to truly be understood and felt. We’re placed right into the perspective of Noland as both he and the viewer fully realize how trapped this guy is. Precise camerawork is the name of the game for Cast Away and it helps to make the central drama extra compelling.

Also benefiting from the stripped-down world of Cast Away is Tom Hanks. Who better to spend two-and-a-half-hours on a deserted island with than America’s Dad? Something I like about both Hanks’ performance and Broyle Jr.’s writing of the character Chuck Noland is how he isn’t a monster before he gets trapped on the island. He’s super work-focused, sure, but he doesn’t abuse his employees, he’s quite capable of being just a normal person at family events. Even the relationship between himself and Kelly Frears isn’t depicted as all that strained. A cute scene of them organizing their schedules together nicely conveys how these two busy souls manage to make this relationship work.

Noland’s world being reasonably fulfilling makes it all the more tragic when he’s plucked from it for four years on end. It’s a terrible situation for the character of Noland but at least it allows Hanks the chance to deliver a memorable performance. Particularly engaging is the way Hanks depicts Noland as becoming resigned to his situation and his only companion being a volleyball named Wilson. In his time on the island, Noland doesn’t so much become a primitive animal as he does become a quiet soul hellbent on surviving. It’s a unique way of approaching a character stranded on a desert island and a key example of how Hanks imbues his performance with such unique qualities.

Recent Robert Zemeckis movies may not be up to scratch, but hey, at least we got Cast Away before the director’s dry spell.