This movie may be over two hours long but it is so worth it.

Cast Away followers a man called Chuck who runs a FedEx branch. He seems to be all about work and is constantly driven by success for his company, this is until he gets into a plane crash and seems to be the sole survivor that ends up on a deserted island.

This man who seems to be quite city like in that he doesn’t have a lot of survival skills, now has to try and survive on this island or find a way out of it or end it all to not have to suffer. It’s fascinating to see what this man goes through.

Chuck starts off as an every day man. He is a simple man who wants to do well in his business and have a good relationship with his girlfriend, however by the end of the film we see a complete change in him, he seems to value his time more and appreciate the people around him, and while he may go back to his old job that he had before, there definitely seems to be a new feeling around him of calm.

What I loved about this film (and what I would usually hate) is that it spent a lot of time letting you get to know the character of Chuck before we end up on the island. We get to know what sort of person he is, what personality he has, and so you really get to see a change in him once he ends up on the island. Now usually I would just want to get to the meat and potatoes of the film but this really helped me connect more with the character and definitely made his situation seem a lot more powerful to me then if we just knew nothing about this character and suddenly he’s on an island.

A real thought-provoking moment of this film was his relationship with his girlfriend. She moves on because, while we don’t know how long he spent on this island, you can tell by the way he looks and the way he changes that it has been a while and she believed he was dead. I think that it’s so powerful to bury your boyfriend, to grieve the loss and move on and start a new, and suddenly have that part of your life brought back to you again. I loved seeing it from both sides of the coin of Chuck wanting to try and re-establish a relationship with her while she has a husband and a child now. I can’t imagine the heartbreak both of them went through realising where the other is now.

Of course I have to talk about Wilson too. I found it really interesting with Wilson, that a lot of it was quite comedic and a lot of this movie was quite funny but also had some tragic and heart breaking moments too. It was just a rollercoaster of emotions that kept you on this ride the whole time. Wilson was a character to me and Chuck had got to a point where he needed something to keep him going and Wilson became that thing. He became that partner that Chuck needed and so to see Wilson float away as he did you could say should be an incredibly funny moment, but the actual moment is really sad because it seems as if the last hope that Chuck had of surviving has just left him.

This movie as I said is quite funny in parts but it’s quite scary and serious too. It’s very heart breaking especially towards the end and it really makes you think about your life and your life choices, and what you put as a priority and what maybe should be prioritised more. You never know what will happen tomorrow. It’s one of those films that everyone has to see once in their lifetime and it certainly is one that I waited far too long to finally watch but I’m kind of glad I did to have the maturity in me to really connect deeply with it.

This film is one I highly recommend and if you have already seen it then I definitely suggest a rewatch because it’s so clever and so thought-provoking and will definitely change the way you view life. Especially coming out of lockdown, my life now is much more about people and memories and less about trying to prove myself to anyone, and I feel Chuck went through a similar change where, before he was so work orientated and now he is much more relaxed. He is much more calm and he values certain things way more than he ever did before.

What do you think of Cast Away?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding