All Is Lost

I'm not sure how things are nowadays but when I was a boy, there was a lot of books and magazines for kids filled with stories of survival.  The thing is, those stories were usually fairly positive with the emphasis on hope and the never-ending ingenuity of mankind.  These stories captivated me.  There was something Romantic about the idea of overcoming nature.  All Is Lost takes that story of survival and strips away all the Romanticism as well as all the clichés that bog down these types of films.

Robert Redford plays an unnamed man (and the only character in the entire film) whose sailboat is damaged and despite making repairs, he must abandon the ship for the safety of an inflatable life raft.  But the ocean has plenty of hardships to throw at this man, and he must use all his wits and luck if he is to have any hope of survival.

One thing that drives me crazy about movies about survival is how often the character's problems are caused by the character himself.  They must overcome their own ineptitude as well as the elements.  All Is Lost, however, features one of the most competent characters I have ever had the pleasure of watching.  No matter what the world throws at him, he immediately goes to work on the problem with a quiet determination.  He is not a man who took a sailboat into the middle of the ocean without knowing how to deal with the myriad issues that one might encounter on the high seas.  He is knowledgeable and effective.  The drama comes not from his being out of his element; it comes from his element being so much greater than his copious skill.

The film is also strikingly beautiful.  The sea is not just deadly; it is majestic.  Frank DeMarco and Peter Zuccarini's cinematography is the closest that the film comes to Romanticizing the survival story.

Being that the film only has one character, dialogue is minimal.  Therefore, the music becomes an integral part of the story.  Despite being a fairly minimal score, it is beautiful and one of the bigger slights for the Academy Awards this year.

But All Is Lost is not without any Oscar recognition.  It's nominated for Best Sound Editing!  And boy do Steve Boeddeker and Richard Hymns edit the hell out of that sound.  I'm just a little surprised that that was all it got nominated for.  It got the Fight Club treatment (also only nominated for Sound Editing) although I'm not sure if All Is Lost will have as enduring a legacy.

This was an incredible movie.  I can't recommend it enough.  Robert Redford proves that, even after he's been turned into wrinkled leather, he still has the chops and star power to carry a film single-handedly.

8 out of 10