FilmRoar

How do you keep an audience engaged for over two hours of a single character stranded on a desert island without anyone to interact with? Good writing and a damned good actor, that’s how (throwing in a volleyball for the protagonist to talk to helps as well). What makes Cast Away (2000) not just a good, but a great movie is the nuance with which William Broyles Jr., the writer, and Tom Hanks play the story on more than one level. Cast Away is not just a story of hardship and survival, but takes the audience to another level in forcing us to look at the frantic work-oriented lives most of us live and to re-examine what at the lowest level is really important to us.

When Hanks is stranded on his tropical island, just thirty minutes into the movie survival becomes a top concern. It is interesting to see the experiments his character makes as he struggle to solve the basic problems of providing for the first of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. How easy is it to catch fresh water or start a fire? Would any of us have an easier time than his frustrating hours spent rubbing sticks to create a first flame? But what makes the story really fascinating is how he deals with fulfilling the requirements we don’t often think of and are needed for long term survival: purpose and companionship. You might think him insane when he begins having interactive conversations with a ball with a painted face, but you have to wonder, how much of this is insanity and how much is a way of staying sane? What about the obsessive drive to figure out a way to make a raft so he can take his chances on the open sea instead of surviving as he has learned how to on the island? You might think that it was foolish to leave the home he had built and the resources he had in a desperate effort to be rescued, however if not working to get off the island then what is his purpose in living?

To anyone who has not seen this movie or maybe only saw it when it was in theaters I recommend renting the DVD for a second showing. After you have a chance to enjoy the well made movie definitely take the time to check out the DVD extras, specially the shorts describing how the film makers went through an intensive survival course in preparation for the production. You will probably learn a lot, not just about making movie but about what keeps people going.