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3 Reasons Why So Many People Quietly Hate the Movie "Cast Away"
by Lewis Robinson
"Cast Away" debuted in movie theatres in the year 2000. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, nominated for two Oscars, enjoyed huge success at the box office, and starred Helen Hunt and one of the most beloved leading men of all time, Tom Hanks. It even has a Rotten Tomatoes audience satisfaction score of 83%. So why do so many people hate it?
And, make no mistake, people do hate this movie. There are entire subreddits dedicated to the expression of hatred towards this film. The next time you're out with a group of friends, try asking, "So, did anyone else hate "Cast Away"?" and see what happens. Freed from expectations by the phrasing of your question, you're likely to hear, "Oh my God, it was so boring!" or, "After two and a half hours, you'd think they could give you a good ending!"
"Cast Away" is a perfect example of a film that everyone thinks they're supposed to rave about. They think everyone else loves it, and fear that if they don't, it says something bad about them. But in their heart of hearts, a lot of folks just flat out don't like "Cast Away". Here are a few things about the movie that might explain why.
There's Just Something About Chuck
Tom Hanks excels at playing the everyman character. He's wonderful in moments of quiet angst or understated joy. He was the perfect choice to play Chuck Noland, a regular guy who does transportation consulting and systems analysis for FedEx. And his performance is very good. Tom is not the problem. The problem is Chuck.
The first several moments of the movie show Chuck going about his rather boring job in a pretty boring way. Despite traveling to exotic locales, Chuck never seems to experience any excitement. The audience is introduced to Chuck's fiance, Kelly, who seems to be quietly pining for a little romance in their relationship which Chuck doesn't seem to notice and clearly cannot provide. There's a sense that, even if Chuck had returned from his ill-fated flight, the relationship was doomed to fail. Chuck isn't a bad guy, but he isn't a great guy either. The audience neither hates him nor likes him. He's pretty mundane. And the audience gets to spend the next two hours watching him alone on a deserted island.
You Only Care About Wilson
Chuck is on the island for four years. It's unclear what about his life as a systems analyst seems to have prepared him for these hardships, but he seems to handle life on the island with relative ease. The audience can assume that those years were difficult; he loses a lot of weight, but Chuck seems to live his life on the island with the same passionless precision that he lived his life before it.
The only person the audience really feels something for is Wilson, and he's not actually a person. He's a soccer ball that Chuck drew a face on with his own blood. The moment when Wilson is lost to the ocean waves as Chuck attempts to leave the island on a raft is the biggest emotional high of the movie so far.
The Problem With the End
For all the brilliant directing, cinematography and acting involved, this is an uneventful movie about an unremarkable guy who returns home essentially unchanged by his journey. He discovers that Kelly has married another man and has a child. This should be tragic, except it is difficult to believe that either of them spent the last four years pining for a relationship that was lukewarm from the start.
Chuck travels to the home of an unknown woman who is the recipient of the only FedEx package he didn't open on the island. The woman is pretty, funny and vibrant, a welcome respite in the midst of what has been an unrelentingly tedious film. The ending is frustratingly ambiguous, but the audience gets the sense that Chuck just might make the first interesting choice of his entire life, and certainly of the past two and a half hours, and pursue a relationship with the owner of the FedEx package. Maybe they should have started the movie there.
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