Wilson, an inspiration

If Wilson was your only friend and had spent years with you on a deserted island. It would be even more traumatic if he always had a smile to give you since it was permanently painted in blood and an attractive hairstyle fashioned from palm fronds.

An Overview: Cast Away blew me away. Who else but Tom Hanks could go from a silly sitcom actor to a so-so comedic actor to a blows them all out of the water leading man? His characters range from a slow but gifted man to a WWII Captain to a death row prison guard, to a talking cowboy doll and now a castaway with complete believability. There are other great actors but nobody else has his range, at least nobody that I can think of. Then there’s Helen Hunt. She never makes a bad movie. 40 or 50 years from now, these are the actors people will remember from this era. Teamed up, you just knew this movie had to be good. But there is no arguing that Cast Away is the success it is because Tom Hanks was able to pull off a film where he spends 90 minutes talking to a volleyball and pictures on the wall and makes it work.

The Plot: FedEx: When it absolutely, positively has to be there in 4 years. Of course, FedEx doesn’t usually take that long to deliver a package, but in this case it does. Here’s why: Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) is a FedEx executive with a Type A personality. In his words, we all live and die by the clock. A late package is unacceptable. Everything in his world is rushed. His job is to fly all over and fix problems with various FedEx operations worldwide. In Russia, at a particularly slow FedEx office, we hear him utter words about committing the shameful sin of turning our backs on the clocks and the calamity that would follow. Little does he know that those words will come back to haunt him as he and Wilson (the volleyball) share a laugh at the irony of that statement as they drift through the sea, now totally on their own time table.

Shortly after returning from Russia, Chuck and his girlfriend Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt) must part ways again. Chuck is again leaving on a business trip, this time over the holidays. She gives him an heirloom pocket watch with her picture, in the car since Chuck is rushed yet again. He sets it to Memphis time, or Kelly time, as he calls it. After promising her he’ll be right back and surprising her with a small wrapped box, he leaves on his fateful trip. Unlike Gilligan’s trip, though, this is no 3 hour tour. However, he does expect to return by New Year’s Eve. He boards FedEx Flt 88.

He never makes it home for New Year’s. What follows are the most tense and horrifying scenes I’ve ever witnessed in a film. I’ve often wondered what a plane crash would be like. Now I know. I was on edge and clutching my seat during the crash scenes. The screen actually went blank for about a minute, then the tension and terror picked up once again as the actual impact came. There was no calm, peaceful scene after that of floating on a raft in the water. This was more graphic and realistic than Titanic. The sheer panic could be felt as Chuck was pummeled down below the water again and again and later carried high above the water in giant waves and storms. This whole film was full of storms. There were few calm, peaceful moments when it was not raining or waves were not crashing violently. He was never in control, even the landing on the island was jolting and sudden. In the darkness of the stormy night, he simply hit land with a thud then fell asleep.

The first thing he did, amazingly, is check his pager! Slowly, he realizes he can do nothing but survive. So that’s what he does—he learns how to survive. With the help of some FedEx packages that washed ashore and the remnants taken from a dead body, he is able to figure out ways to stay alive. And after meeting Wilson, to preserve his sanity. With a personality like Chuck Noland, Wilson was essential. A man like that needs someone to bounce ideas off of, no pun intended.

He creates drawings on a cave wall, trying to keep Kelly with him and keep track of dates and numbers, which are very important to him. He relies on Wilson to motivate and advise him. Wilson is his devil’s advocate, always arguing the worst case scenario to Chuck.

Much has been said about Tom Hank’s weight loss for the film. Since he started out heavier than usual, he never really looks emaciated to me. There is definitely a change in appearance, though. I always wondered how Tarzan was so clean shaven and groomed. It’s so realistic here how Chuck’s appearance does change. He is weather beaten, rough looking and has a long matted beard and hair. The man even removes a tooth with an ice skate and a rock, for goodness sake. The got the castaway look down perfectly. He even tells Wilson there are things Gilligan never told you, such as how coconut milk is a natural laxative.

I don’t think I’m giving away anything not known by saying there is an eventual escape from the island. These scenes were frightening as well with more storms, huge waves and even whales surrounding him. I can think of nothing scarier than a pitch black ocean at night in a storm not knowing what may lie beneath you. The loss of Wilson on the journey is absolutely heart wrenching.

Predictably, life at home has moved on without him. There was a funeral, where they buried things such as cell phones and pagers, and of course, the love of his life has moved on as well. Once he’s back among civilization and has plates full of unwanted and uneaten food before him, the irony is very heavy. For instance, he does not want to look at another crab again, yet back on the island, he did an excited song and dance at the chance to eat crab cooked over a fire.

Once he’s cleaned up and back in Memphis, he looks better than I’ve seen Tom Hanks look in years, probably since Forrest Gump. He looks younger than ever. Helen Hunt looks fairly plain, but I think she looks better this way than in her recent movie, What Women Want, where she looks overly done. In the very few scenes where Helen Hunt gets to show her acting ability, I can feel her frustration and anguish as she realizes she was right when she felt he was still alive and that she is with the wrong man.

The Ending: This was somewhat of a letdown to me but not as bad as I’d expected. My daughter and husband had already seen the movie and said they hated the ending. I had to think about it a few minutes but decided it was better this way for me because I get to decide how I want it to end.

Stop here is you don’t want to know more details about the end:

Chuck is at a crossroads of his life, literally. He does not know where to go next. He’s delivered the last FedEx package from the island, the only unopened one. A woman tells him what will happen if he goes in each direction and leaves. He smiles. That’s it. After thinking about it a bit, I interpret this to mean that he has been set free from the clock and is now in control for the first time. He complained on the island that he controlled nothing, not even his choice to die. Yet in his old life, he was not in control, either. He was controlled by the clock, lived and died by it. He would go anywhere, even on a plane against his free will during the holidays, to beat the clock. Now he could go anywhere in his own time. The choice was all his.

He said that the final package saved his life. I thought about why this was. I think it’s because this package did not arrive on time—it was 4 years late. And it was OK. Life went on. Nothing terrible happened, and he finally realizes this.

You may have a different choice of how you want it to end than I do. In my ending, he ends up with the love of his life after all. I don’t think her marriage could survive and there is no going back. She can’t pretend Chuck does not exist. There would have never been a marriage if she knew he lived. Maybe her husband even chooses to annul the marriage. I think Chuck goes on a nice, long vacation and returns home. Kelly has told her husband she still loves Chuck and he becomes a part of her life again and a wonderful step-father to Katie. Others may think she should play the martyr and stay with a man she settled for when the love of her life was presumed dead. Ending it this way, it’s left open to your interpretation.