Cast Away

Ever since Matthew Arnold responded to John Donne's famous one-liner "No man is an island unto himself" with his battle rhyme "Yes! in this sea of life enisled/With echoing straits between us thrown/Dotting the shoreless watery wild/We mortal millions live alone," people have busily debated which English poet had the right idea. Director Robert Zemeckis and star Tom Hanks come down squarely in the middle of this issue, both philosophically and cinematically, with their new film "Cast Away."

Philosophically, "Cast Away" asserts that man can live by himself, although it's not fun. But cinematically, "Cast Away" undermines that premise, because the section of the film that details Hanks' struggle to live enisled is as engrossing as anything you'll see this year, and the sections which feature Hanks thrown across the echoing straits are first pedestrian and then treacly. The island section dominates the film, and its awesome power means "Cast Away" cannot be ignored. If only it had a more convincing ending, it would be one of the best films of the past few years.

Hanks plays Chuck Noland, who has the highly metaphorical occupation of FedEx systems engineer. Noland jets around the world connecting people, but he can't connect with his girlfriend Kelly (Helen Hunt) for long because he's always jetting off somewhere to connect other people. Nevertheless, he is about to propose to Kelly when he gets a page and has to jet off to Malaysia. At the airport, he tells her, "I'll be right back," which is of course Universal Movie Code for "Something unspeakably horrible is about to happen to me."

Although Hanks' bluster and verve in this section are fun, everyone who shows up at the theater knows there's a horrible something coming, and the film would be better served if the exposition were much, much shorter. Of course, if it were shorter, it couldn't be such a blatant FedEx commercial, which becomes important from a legal perspective when Noland's plane has a head-first encounter with the Pacific.

Right when Noland steps on the plane, Zemeckis steps up the filmmaking. He realizes that he doesn't need crashing symphonic music or whistling wind to convey terror at 30,000 feet; the dull, terse panic of the pilots and the occasional glimpses of turbulence out of their windows do fine. When things really start to go wrong, Zemeckis sets up the camera as the only thing under control in a rapidly disintegrating catastrophe, and what we see is all the more terrible for it.

The harrowing crash not only provides us with numerous thrills, but also makes us appreciate the stillness and loneliness of the island on which Noland eventually washes up. Once we get to the island, the pace slows considerably, and Zemeckis examines the making of Noland's new, primitive life with patience and attention to detail that we normally only get in European films. Zemeckis is willing to be still and watch the nuances — the small triumph of figuring out how to get freshwater to drink, the bitter, slashing pain of an injury that must be ignored — wash over Noland. One scene in which the camera watches Noland gazing from a cliff out onto an unbroken blue sea tells everything about how alone Noland feels, without saying a word. Besides the Northern Hemisphere moon on a Southern Hemisphere island (it's upside-down), Zemeckis does everything right here.

Of course, Zemeckis could do nothing at all without an actor suited to the part. Fortunately, he chose the best possible man to be enisled in Tom Hanks. Noland's verve is erased by his predicament, and his bluster is lost on the trees and ocean (he eventually makes himself a companion, in one of the film's most interesting twists); he realizes quickly that he cannot be the man he was. Fortunately, Noland reveals a adaptable intelligence and an almost indomitable will to survive. Hanks is a naturally sympathetic actor, and he uses every bit of the pathos and humor he can muster to elevate the island section of this film to the rarefied level it occupies. There is something elemental and resonant about this film while it's on the island, something we don't normally see in theaters, something utterly fascinating and absorbing and more real for its removal from reality.

Then, in a twist which Twentieth Century Fox has made no effort to conceal in its previews, Noland comes home. The less said about this last section, the better. While it contains some effectively painful humor, and while Zemeckis directs with the same patient attention and Hanks acts with the same intelligence and sympathy, the basic drive of this last section is that Noland needs to learn a Lesson. This Lesson is painfully and (given what has come before) strangely unimaginative.

Frankly, it's probably best if you go see this film and stay until Noland is discovered, and then skip the last section. You won't miss much. If you do stay, try to remember the great filmmaking in the middle and not the mawkish sentimentality of the end. Zemeckis and Hanks pay lip service to Donne, but they're much more convincing in the shoreless watery wild, living alone.

ANDREW GO CRAZY

Gregorio Villalobos attended this screening with me and pointed out that the moon was wrong. Gregorio acquired this knowledge from living in Australia for six months. For those of you who did not have the pleasure of the Spam-O-Matic before July, I would like to note that Gregorio specifically requested that the Spam-O-Matic continue to be delivered to him in the land of horrifically poisonous beasts and Olympic tie-ins. This is the level of dedication I expect from all of you. There's no "I won't have time to read this while trying to find work and housing in a foreign country! What are you, crazy?" in "Spam-O-Matic." There are parts of it, true, but you can't find the whole thing, not by a long shot. Greg moved to New York yesterday, and wherever he goes, you can be sure the Spam-O-Matic will travel with him. Even the grave, if I can figure out how to work that.

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