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December 23, 2000

The movie. Only the first three rows available. We, in row three, popcorn and soda in hand settled in for a two hour thrill ride into the depths of Chuck Noland's psyche. And his fascination for a volleyball, with a painted face of blood, named Wilson for which Chuck Noland ends up sobbing like a baby over.

Ok, let me begin at the beginning. It's 1995 just before Christmas and we open up in Russia. Fed-Ex. Need I say more? In some ways, this was one long promotional video for the package pushers. But it didn't seem to detract from the picture, except for in the most obvious and slightly humorous of ways that will be mentioned later.

Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) is a high-stress, hard hitting Fed-Ex managerial type who "lives and dies by the clock". As he says "never turn your back to the clock". To demonstrate this he actually Fed-Ex'd himself an egg-timer from Memphis, TN to Russia (where he's training new Fed-Exxers) and upon opening the package finds out it has taken 87 hours and some odd minutes to be delivered. Livid. He uses this as a tool to drive his people. His goal. To make the plane. He does. And even though everyone in the audience thinks this is the plane that's going to hit the ocean, it doesn't.

He gets back home to his lovely girlfriend, Kelly, who is distasteful of marriage (important point). They dine with friends over Christmas where much teasing about marriage ensues only reaffirming the fact that she has gone through a bad breakup in the past and would rather put off all ideas of marriage at this time. A bit too "in our face" but we got the point.

Chuck Noland gets paged much to the chagrin of Kelly. He has to leave. She drives him to the airport and they exchange gifts in the car where there is much gooey love-doveying and then he hops out and heads to the plane. She calls out after him. "Keys!" He turns back and tosses them to her. Close-up of swiss army knife keychain. Repeatedly. Hmm... (rolling eyes). He turns back to her one more time and walks to the window, handing her a small wrapped box (an engagement ring no doubt). She looks at him, looks at the box and says: "I'm terrified." He lets her know that she can open in on New Year's when they will be together. Then he turns back to his Fed-Ex plane and calls over his shoulder "Be right back!". Boards the plane.

The plane crashes. Although I did like the way they led up to that point. There's a little turbulence, nothing he hasn't experienced before. He goes to the bathroom, slowly peels a bandaid off his finger and it looking at it intently then WHAMMO the door flies open and he's clinging for his life to the door frame in order to avoid being sucked from the bowels of the plane. Impressive. And startling. Because we, the viewer, were just getting involved in that finger boo-boo and sort of interested in the scabbing over and such.

There's a lot of underwater gasping, grabbing for life vests, rafts, etcetera. The usual. He ends up clinging to a raft in the pouring rain through the night until he hits a rock and sits up, sees a beach, drags his raft to it and passes out on the sand. End of big action scene.

Awakening on the sand, thirsty and befuddled, I think his first thought is "If there's land here there must be some sort of human life". Unfortunately, this isn't so. Fed-Ex packages have been washing ashore so naturally, in his shocked state, he collects them and sorts them by region. I mean, it's what any good Fed-Ex employee would do! Yeah.

Then there's the big roaming the island scenes, coconuts plopping from the sky, the usual discovery of rock-and-stick tools. One day he sees a body wash over to some rocks. It's one of his co-workers on the plane. Dead. And decaying, I might add. Lovely. He drags him to shore after gagging a bit and choking back sobs. Removes his shoes (which he has to cut the toes out of to wear), digs a grave and buries him. The eulogy consists of "Well, that's that." or something to that effect. Touching.

The next step is to finally realize that you're not going to deliver the goddamn packages so open them! Finally. He does. One of the items he discovers is a volleyball. And while trying to make fire he cuts his hand and in his frustration picks up the ball and throws it against a rock. It bounces back with a blood smear which, after a little artistic work with spit, resembles a face. Chuck sets it on a stump and it gives him the inspiration to keep trying with the fire thing until *poof* fire. Which leads to a huge bonfire and much dancing around like a crazy man, elated at his success.

There is one package that he doesn't open. Why? Well, it has these wings with circle around them painted on the outside. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the very first scene was a Fed-Ex truck way out in the boonies driving up to this farm where a lovely red-head is welding some sort of art work. Her package is picked up and delivered to Russia (that's where I started at the beginning) to her husband who is a whore. Ok, not literally. But he is obviously fucking around on her with some Russian tart. Ok, where were we?

Oh yeah, the wings. So he never opens this package. Oooo, foreshadowing. Then there's the pseudo sighting of a ship which turns out to be the sun coming over the horizon. What a disappointment to everyone involved. You can almost hear a collective moan through out the audience. I'm telling you, it was a grasping portrayal. There's his attempted swim/rafting over the breakers which results in a huge coral reef gash in his leg. Yeah, ouch. Let's try that again in four years, eh?

Then *bing*! Four years go by. Lots of things happen which I can't really go into here because it would take all day and if you really cared you'd be at the theater and not reading this. Moving on.

His hair is sun-blonded, his body has gone from pale and flabby to lean and tan, his beard is long, he wears a loin cloth and has mastered fire, water collection, spear fishing, and cave artistry. He is a survivor! (They should have had that Richard guy play this role.)

One day half of a Porta-John washes to shore and an idea is born. A sail! A sail! It takes him four or five months to make rope, build a raft and paint these inspirational circled wings on his Porta-John sail. And then the easterly (I think) winds arrive and it's his big chance for escape. Have I mentioned that he regularly talks to Wilson (his volleyball with blood face) and has become very attached to him?

With winds whipping and Wilson secured to the mast, he's off to test out those breakers again. This time the sail works and he's free! Into the great wide ocean. Whoopie! The audience is really excited but then realizes... The ocean? What the heck are you gonna do on the ocean?

Well, for one there are huge whales underwater which both freaked me out and made me think there was a ship nearby. Then while he's sleeping Wilson becomes detached from the mast and bobs away. He wakes up and attempts to swim out to "save the life of his friend" but fails. Much sobbing and beating of breast ensues showing us just how crazy he's become because he's crying over a volleyball. Then his sail blows away (or maybe it was before that, regardless).

He floats around on the ocean sunburnt and thirsty. Finally, when you think you just can't take it anymore a ship goes by. He's sleeping. You want to scream. Finally he wakes up and points at the ship and croaks out one word "Kelly". Thank god they see him.

Next scene: airplane. He's going home to Memphis. All clean shaven, hair cut and well dressed. He's fascinated by the fact that he can have ice whenever he wants. I guess after no ice for four years, you'd be too.

Fed-Ex has this big ceremony for him. Much hoopla and partying. And he's told that Kelly will be there. Well, she doesn't have the balls to see him and sends her husband (yes, her HUSBAND) instead. That guy just happens to be his old dentist. Heeheeha. What a flooz. She married a dentist. Wait! She got married? Wahell!

Anyway, Chuck's pretty broken up about it and takes a cab to her house in the middle of the night. She greets him at the door and invites him in for coffee. Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugggggg. Squeeze. He keeps saying nice things about her house and daughter which she keeps negating with negative commentary. You know, "trying not to look to happy". Blah blah.

He gives back this pocket watch thing that she gave him for Christmas four years ago because it was her grandfather's and all. A watch, I might add, that he had been looking at constantly through out the movie because her picture was tucked into the inside cover. He keeps the picture. She takes him out to the garage and hands over the keys to his car which she has kept for him for four years. Awww...

They talk. He drives down the driveway and down the street a little bit. Close up of Kelly (did I mention she's played by Helen Hunt?) then a screaming of "Chuuuck! Chuuuuck!". She's running down the driveway in the rain. He's throwing the car in reverse and screeching to a halt in front of her! Leaping from the car! Careening into eachother's arms! "You're the love of my life!" "No you!" "No YOU!!" Etcetera. Then she realizes she has a family and has to go home. Boohoo. Any woman who has the love of her life standing in front of her would have divorced the dweeb dentist she's married. But not Kelly. Bitch.

He goes over to his Fed-Ex co-worker friend's house and has a long chit-chat about losing Kelly. Whaaa. Sniffle. Actually, I liked how Tom Hanks played this entire role. Very nicely done. Although it makes you think Kelly is a goody-goody bitch. Oh yeah, I already mentioned that. Heh.

Well, he still has this package with the wings on it. He decides to return it to sender (the pretty red-head, wee!). He drives way out to her house and she's not home. Although we become aware that she's left her husband because his name is no longer on the sign over the entrance to her ranch. Yippee. He writes a note: "Hi I'm Chuck Noland. This package saved my life." and leaves it in her door. He drives down the long driveway, stops his car at the end, gets out and consults the map and finds the lovely young lady driving up!

She gets out and ever so coquettishly asks if he's lost. Tells him which way each road leads (we're at an actual crossroads here, people). How symbolic. They have flirtatious chit chat and she drives up her driveway. Then suddenly, after seeing the wing symbol painted on the back of her truck, he puts it all together and realizes who she is.

The movie ends there. With him standing in an actual crossroads, very literally, staring in all four directions. But we all know he's going to drive up to that house where our cute redhead has found his note and have his survivalist way with her. It was meant to be.

The end.