Hanks, Zemeckis reteam in engrossing, poignant 'Cast Away'

By Joko E.H. Anwar

Cast Away *** (out of four)

Drama, 143 minutes

Starring Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, a volleyball (uncredited)

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

JAKARTA (JP): What do you think would happen if a bunch of preteen kids were stranded on a remote island? The children may enjoy too much living without their parents, teachers and rules, and turn into violent savages. There you have it, the hair- raising Lord of the Flies.

And what would happen if a young boy and girl found themselves together on another such island? They will soon learn about sex, and you end up with a skin flick such as The Blue Lagoon.

But what do you think would happen in a film about a man who is stranded alone on an uninhabited island?

Before you can say Robinson Crusoe, here comes an engrossing tale of one man's survival to stay alive and sane after being whisked away from civilization.

Audience expectations may vary since the film is directed by Robert Zemeckis. The award-winning director is known for not having the trademark characteristics of most well-known directors in his films.

You may expect to see a horror film dealing with ghosts on the island, like What Lies Beneath which plays like the outtakes from The Sixth Sense.

You may also expect a fun adventure like the Back to the Future trilogy.

This time, the director reteams with his Forrest Gump star Tom Hanks and succeeds in making a film which reaches our emotional depths and is guaranteed to move even skeptics who believed they would get just another film about someone stranded on a desert island.

Hanks is Chuck Noland, a dedicated Federal Express executive who frequently flies around the world lecturing FedEx employees about the company's dedication to time.

A smart and time-obsessed man, he seems perfect for the job.

He never seems to bother with people knowing the fact that he once stole a kid's bike, after knocking the kid off it, to deliver a shipment on time.

"We never ever commit the sin of losing track of time!" Chuck briefs FedEx employees in Russia. To prove his dedication to time, he opens a package containing a clock, which arrives minutes after he does!

He expresses his disappointment, saying the package is several minutes late. "Next thing you know, we're the U.S. Postal Service."

His fiancee Kelly Frears (Hunt), though not approving of Chuck's attitude, never complains. Thus you will be spared of those boring scenes of a couple quarreling because one of them is demanding that they spend more time together.

Fateful

On one fateful Christmas Eve, Chuck must leave a family dinner for another assignment. Kelly drives him to the airport and gives him his Christmas present. He says that he will be right back. But we know that he will not.

He wakes up during the flight after the plane is caught in a terrible storm. Predictably, the plane goes down.

It's hard to expect a terrifying plane crash sequence after such scenes have been overused in countless action films, even in the supernatural teenage flick Final Destination. However, the plane crash sequence is almost as terrifying as that in Alive (1993), which is still the best yet.

He wakes up the next morning and learns that he is stranded on a small island with no sign that it is populated with people.

He begins making signs, so rescue teams which may be looking for him will know he is there.

In a comical and, at the same time, touching moment, he collects several FedEx packages which have been washed ashore and starts categorizing them.

He soon learns about the possibility that he will never be found and so he starts adapting himself to the merciless sun and tries to use whatever he can find on the beach to stay alive.

Chuck even succeeds, after several failed attempts, to make fire.

Instead of giving the audience a more serious sequence on the island, Hanks plays his character with the comedic approach he has shown in most of his movies.

However, instead of it being ridiculous, he succeeds in pulling the audience deeper into the story and makes them feel what his character is feeling.

At first, you may laugh at some of Chuck's behavior on the island, but later you will likely shed a tear than chuckle.

Even Chuck's interaction with a volleyball, which he calls after the brand name Wilson, is very believable. In fact, you will find that the volleyball is in fact a character.

The volleyball "character" allows Chuck Noland to make speeches which break the silence of the island.

You will for sure feel sad when the volleyball is eventually forced to be separated from Chuck.

Unfortunately, the film's leap, four years forward, makes the film's second half a little bit disjointed from its first.

This due to the filmmakers' decision to shut down the production for a year, after a few months of shooting, to enable Tom Hanks to lose about 23 kilograms and grow out his hair. During that period, Robert Zemeckis used the same crew to make What Lies Beneath.

Tom Hanks has done this kind of transformation in his Oscar- winning performance in Philadelphia (1993).

However, it would have been much better if we were shown Tom Hanks' progressive transformation from being buff to lean in the sequence on the island.

There was a notable and wonderful moment when, while floating at sea on his raft after Chuck finally decides to leave the island, he encounters a whale which watches him intensely.

The segment after Chuck returns to his hometown in Memphis, actually stresses the message of the story.

We earlier learned that it was Chuck's love for Kelly which made him decide to leave the island in a seemingly impossible attempt to return to civilization using a not-too-well- constructed raft he made using, among other things, video tapes which he had found from one of the FedEx parcels he had collected earlier.

However, things are not quite what he expects when he gets back.

Toward the end, the film becomes more and more quiet, actually quieter than the sequence on the remote island. In this other silence, Chuck Noland receives his education, and so does the audience.

Cast Away does not just tell a story of one man's struggle to survive after being stranded on an uninhabited island, but also about a man's struggle to get what he wants, and his fight to stay alive after he learns that he wants something that he can never have.