Post 59

Good news: a movie review that breaks from that 4-point-check rut I've been stuck in!

I just watched Cast Away. I've seen it a couple of times before, but it's been a while. It was on TV, so it was interrupted by an excessive number of commercial breaks, but I still enjoyed it.

So. Let's write a review!

I really like this movie--mostly because it does so many things that go against mainstream Hollywood. That said, I don't think rebellion alone merits appellations of greatness, and Cast Away is far from great, but I still like it okay.

In my mind, Cast Away is not a movie about a man stranded on an island for four years; yes, that's part of the movie, but I don't think it would be fair to say that that's the main conflict. To me, the thing that makes this movie beautiful--and I do think it's a beautiful movie--all of the beauty in the movie happens after Chuck returns from his island.

But let's back up a bit and take the movie chronologically, shall we? We'll divide it into chapters: Pre-island, Island, and Post-island.

CHAPTER 1: PRE-ISLAND
The set-up is great, but there were times I felt like I was watching the bad execution of a fine screenplay--most noticeably on the plane flight from Russia when the one lady asks that guy about his terminally ill wife; the acting was just--not good. I thought the Chuck-Kelly thing worked well, though, and that was the most important part. Just as an unimportant sidenote, I really appreciated that when they kissed in the copy room, they simply kissed for a long time as opposed to attempting to devour one another. Also, I can appreciate the outside-of-the-box thinking that produced such things as package-POV camera angles, but I don't think the idea was really all that great.

CHAPTER 2: ISLAND
Several things make this movie very unique, and most of them are seen on the island. First, after the plane wreck, as he's drifting on his raft, there are long periods of time with naught but sound. That's a stylistic risk that I'm pretty sure turned off a lot of mainstream Americans. Then, on the island, there are many scenes with very little sound. I was struck by how little background music there was during the island scenes--there may not have been any at all, though I'm not sure. Looking back, it seems to me that there wasn't any music on the island at all, though there was some immediately afterward as he was sailing away. Fascinating idea; I'll have to pay better attention next time.
Overall, I think that this portion of the movie was well done. I think it develops well, that the four-year gap is well placed, and that the whole thing just works really well.

CHAPTER 3: POST-ISLAND
This is, as I said, the chapter that makes the movie. To me, the island and everything else is just back story to the drama that surrounds his homecoming. I. Love. The way the Chuck-Kelly thing plays out; I can imagine nothing more poignant and beautiful. It really doesn't matter where he was--he could've been a MIA POW or sold into slavery or abducted by aliens, it doesn't matter; it's the painful inability of two lovers to come together that get the catharsis train tearing up the track, and I love that train! I really can't say enough for the final chapter of this movie; I love everything about it. I think that it's brilliant, and I'm very sad that so many people probably can't get passed the just-another-shipwrecked-movie line of thinking. Taking that line of thought, I have a fairly low opinion of this movie, but by transcending that point of view and looking at the heart of this film to see it for what it is--a film exploring the pains of disappointed love--I find a movie that truly is beautiful.