Runtime: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: J.C. Chandor
Quick Impressions:
All is Lost is not the kind of movie that ordinarily excites me. It’s very bare bones. It’s just a man and a boat and the sea. That’s it. No family. No friends. No human antagonists. No tigers. No hallucinated handsome co-stars. Not even a friendly volleyball.
To be honest, I put off seeing this film until delay no longer seemed prudent. In another week, All is Lost may no longer be playing in my area. (As it is, it’s only on one screen at the artsiest theatre in town!) Still, I almost didn’t go today. After eating Thanksgiving dinner the other night, we all watched The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (because my sister and my in-laws hadn’t seen it), and that left me feeling so favorably toward Judi Dench that I almost went to see Philomena today instead. (I really debated. I’m nearly certain Robert Redford’s going to get a Best Actor nomination, but All Is Lost does come out on Blu-ray February 11, well before the Academy Awards on March 2, 2014. Could I afford to wait that long to see his performance? The decision was a nail-biter for sure, far more suspenseful than the film itself.)
I mention all this deliberation because I think it’s only right to disclose that I’m probably not the ideal audience for this movie. If you’re a fan of Robert Redford, yachting, or silent disasters at sea, you should probably take everything negative I have to say with a grain of salt.
(If you need help procuring a grain of salt, simply collect ocean water in a basin, cover it with a plastic tarp, leave an empty cup in the bottom, and wait for evaporation to work. Eventually, you’ll get potable water in the cup and many grains of salt remaining on the bottom of the basin. Why more cinematic characters dying of thirst near an ocean don’t try something like this I will never understand!)
When I told my mother what movie we were preparing to see as we left the house, she squealed in excitement, “Ooh! Robert Redford!”
I’m the wrong age, I guess, to swoon for Robert Redford. I don’t mean that I don’t like older men. It’s just that Redford’s best and most famous movie-starish type work all came out in the 1970s, a decade when I never went to the theater for the simple reason that I wasn’t even born until its final year. I know the names of Redford’s biggest hits, but I saw none of them in the theater and few (to be honest) at all. (Even though my mother graduated from high school in 1971, she never really liked the culture of that decade, so we didn’t grow up watching much 1970s film, and there’s still a huge gap there for me that I really need to address soon.)
Now I’m not saying I’ve never seen Robert Redford on screen. My father loves the movie Out of Africa, and my husband loves Meryl Streep, and I got interested in Isak Dinesen for a while in college, so of course, I’ve seen him play Denys many, many times. My sister saw Spy Game because she was obsessed with Brad Pitt, but I can’t remember if I went to see it with her. I do know that my sister and I didn’t go see The Horse Whisperer. We almost did, but then we didn’t. (Isn’t that a great story?)
So you see, I’m hardly Redford’s biggest fan. It’s not because I don’t enjoy his work. It’s because I don’t know his work. At least, I don’t know his work as an actor. My mother was a particular fan of Ordinary People, the film for which Redford won his Oscar for directing. As a young adolescent, I sometimes dreamed of becoming a psychiatrist, so I did enjoy watching Ordinary People with my mother.
The Good:
All Is Lost delivers exactly what it promises—Robert Redford by himself on a boat in open seas. As the film opens, we find him alone with his yacht, the Victoria Jean. (I noticed in the credits that the filmmakers went through three actual yachts in the making of the movie, so I presume most of the scenes of disaster are as real as they can be.)
The opening scene contains what is essentially the movie’s only dialogue, and technically, it’s a monologue, a voice-over of Redford’s character (called Our Man in the credits) reading over a letter that he has written (presumably to his family). We get no real specifics about who our man is or why he’s decided to yacht around the Indian Ocean all alone. All we know is that as he writes the letter, he believes that “all is lost,” and says something like, “I don’t know why I didn’t realize it sooner.” (I’m quoting that incorrectly, but it’s something to that effect.)
So from that moment on, I believed that we were being shown a metaphor for life. Others may have different (or similar but more nuanced) interpretations. But that’s what I saw. Ordinarily, if a man goes alone against the sea, despite any small victories he may enjoy along the way, the sea wins in the end. We’re all going through something similar. We’re all alone drifting through life, and despite all our efforts and escapes and triumphs, death gets us in the end.
This is not exactly a ray of sunshine, so if you’re noticing that it’s always dark outside lately and want to see a movie in hopes that it will cheer you up, see a different movie.
From a certain (rather grim, admittedly) point of view, we’re all walking around dead, keeping ever so busy, focused on each new challenge, rather oblivious to the fact that no matter what we do, our death is assured.
In certain obvious ways, then, All Is Lost has quite a bit in common with another Oscar hopeful, Gravity. One film has a cast of two and pits one woman against outer space. Will she survive? Does she want to survive? The other has a cast of one and pits one man against the ocean. He wants to survive. Does it matter?
A huge difference between Gravity and All Is Lost is that Sandra Bullock talks to herself constantly while Robert Redford remains nearly silent. To me the silence felt awkward and unnatural. I mean, yes, it’s annoying when a character alone feels the need for constant expository soliloquys, but to me it feels equally unrealistic when a character left solitary for days at a time never talks to himself at all. I mean, Redford mutters now and then, but it’s really very seldom. In a moment of total frustration and near despair, he does say one word out loud, and maybe that explains his silence. (If that’s any indication of what he’s been thinking all this time, then he had to keep quiet for fear of an R rating.)
This silence was very off-putting to me, alienating. If I were alone for that long, I would be talking to myself constantly. (After the first hour, Tom Hanks would have had names for every inanimate object on the yacht!) I don’t mean that I’d become delusional and have conversations with imaginary companions. I just mean that I think it’s normal to express your thoughts aloud if there’s no one around to be bothered. Maybe he would talk more if he lost his pen (although all he ever writes is little xs). I had trouble identifying with our man because he didn’t talk to himself at all. I’m not saying that expository dialogue from him would help me to know what he was thinking. I’m just saying that I would talk, and to me, someone who never talks seems hard to relate to.
But I wouldn’t call this a failing of the film because I notice that I never seem to understand the strong, silent male in literature, and yet guys I’ve taken classes with in the past have repeatedly commented positively on the relatability of silent male characters I found completely inscrutable.
I suppose you do have to focus on what he does since he refuses to say anything. And actually what he does says a great deal about his character. (He’s very persistent with those little x’s. It takes a special kind of person to puzzle over a sextant and never even think about an oar. But life is like that, isn’t it? It’s far easier to chart progress than to change it.)
To me, the best thing about this story of one man against the sea was the sea. I’m the type who always goes out too far in the ocean. I think I could just walk out into the ocean and let it carry me away and sink under the water and feel perfectly content. (I also wander hypnotized to the edge of high cliffs and feel compelled to jump which made our family vacation to Mesa Verde very exciting for my parents when I was eleven.)
Once the first storm starts, the movie becomes endlessly better. I love the minimal use of music and maximum use of ocean sounds. It’s soothing and pleasant. Of course, on the downside, I did keep wondering if my husband would be able to stay awake. He’s chronically sleep deprived, and that lulling rhythm of the sea sounded exactly like the Sleep Sheep we used to use to get my daughter to go down when she was a baby. (Actually, we had two Sleep Sheep. The first was a gift, and it was perfect. I’d turn it on to ocean, and the next thing I knew, I would be asleep. But of course, that Sleep Sheep stopped working. We bought another, but its ocean didn’t sound the same. It only sounded good on whale song which was fine with my daughter. Sadly, though, by that time, I could only fall asleep with the soothing ocean sounds of the original Sleep Sheep. It’s a wonder I’ve slept a wink since its demise.)
Best Scene Visually:
The final scene is the best in the film. I say this because I got choked up and felt this unexpected surge of emotion as the very last thing happened. I didn’t realize I’d been sufficiently engaged to feel something so profound, but I definitely did. The impact of that final moment raises my estimation of the film infinitely. It does make a strong statement.
Now when I saw it initially, I made an assumption about the film’s ending that I assumed was obvious. My husband, however, saw the ending a different way. I’d like to believe that his take is the correct one. (And now that I reflect on Ordinary People, perhaps it is.) I still think that my version of what happened makes more sense given that Redford (despite being a fine and dedicated actor, totally committed to the performance) is not a fish or…Pinocchio or something.
I also loved the scene where he climbs the mast. It just looks good.
The shipping container full of tiny shoes is also incredibly ominous. (Run away! Or maybe, Nobody’s there! You’re all alone!) (It doesn’t help that the only time you usually see so many empty shoes is when you’re at a museum mourning the loss of all the feet that once filled them.)
Best Scene:
My favorite scene is the moment when our man is shaving. I enjoyed it for several reasons. For one thing, it reminded me fondly of the scene in the movie Airplane when one female passenger chooses exactly the wrong moment to touch up her lipstick.
After the movie, my husband asked, sounding baffled, maybe slightly annoyed, “Why is he shaving when he knows a storm is coming?”
And of course, I’d be lying if I said that thought didn’t flit across my mind as I watched Redford making careful faces into his tiny mirror.
Really? I thought. It’s just you out there on that big ocean. Are you sure you need to be clean shaven to get through the next few hours? Is that really your priority? I don’t know much about yachting, but my imagination immediately thrust Humphrey Bogart into the same situation, and you can bet his face was all scruffy with stubble as the massive waves came knocking.
The longer I watched, though, the more and more I loved the scene, and I finally figured out why.
As weird as this sounds given that the movie has a cast of one, for much of the movie, Redford is consistently upstaged by his co-star. I mean the ocean.
But in this moment in the cabin below, the ocean is shut out. It’s just a minor annoyance looming in the background of the mirror. There’s a strangely satisfying intimacy in this moment. We’re alone with our man in a small, enclosed, quiet space, and now that the distraction of the sea is gone, we’re able to see more about the man.
For the first time, his apparent calm is shattered. He’s clearly frightened about what’s coming yet trying to remain in charge of the situation. After I asked myself, Why is he shaving now? I suddenly realized that he had also just been cooking his dinner on the stove. Clearly he’s doing these routine things to keep himself focused and—distracted is not quite the right word. We get the idea that he believes as long as he goes about his business, adhering to a standard routine, acting as if everything is normal and under control, he will keep his head, and the storm will pass uneventfully.
His big eyes in this scene remind me so much of black and white photographs of actors through the ages playing Hamlet. Redford really plays this scene like he’s a Barrymore—I’m thinking of John or Lionel, not Drew (though she also has very expressive eyes)—starring in a silent movie. It’s a pretty easy comparison to make because in the moments when he’s below deck and the noise of the ocean is shut out, All Is Lost is (effectively) a silent movie.
So this shaving scene below deck is great for several reasons. I think it feels especially noteworthy to me because it’s the first break we’ve had from the monotony of the early scenes. Things change here. The tone of the film changes. The situation changes. The protagonist’s take on what’s happening to him most definitely changes.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Robert Redford):
As great as the shaving scene is, I don’t think anybody is going to watch it and exclaim excitedly, “Ooh! Robert Redford makes such big eyes while he shaves! Let’s give him the Oscar!”
Here’s why I would nominate the veteran if I were a fellow actor. Robert Redford is not a young man, yet when the waves crash over the yacht, we get shot after shot of Redford climbing, falling, swimming all over the place. Forget his awesome facial expressions. The sheer physicality of this role, the demands on his body and his willingness to commit to such punishing scenes should earn Redford massive respect from his peers.
It’s not like Robert Redford is a starving artist waiting tables and taking any work that comes to make ends meet. He’s already won an Oscar for directing Ordinary People. He certainly didn’t have to make this film. Why did he do it? I have three guesses: 1) Love of the craft, 2) Love of boating and peril at sea adventures (I mean, have you seen Ordinary People?), 3) Desire for an Oscar for acting.
If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a mix of all three of these factors (and maybe he also wanted to work with Chandor, I don’t know), but what matters is, Redford is definitely passionate about the work. He’s almost eighty years old. He wouldn’t go drowning himself over the side of a capsizing yacht unless he felt he was creating something that mattered.
I’ve seen some very impressive performances by lead actors already this year, and I’ve heard amazing things about others that I’ve not yet been able to see. Redford gives an impressive performance here, yes, but it’s one of insanely many this year. Will he be nominated for Best Actor? Almost certainly. But where he really distinguishes himself here is not what he does with his face, but what he’s willing to do with his body. He totally commits to an exhausting, punishing role, and I believe he’ll be rewarded for that.
Best Action Sequence:
In particular, I like the bit when our man hits his head. I remember thinking, Sometimes maybe it’s better not to wake up. The movie would have been so much more peaceful if he’d just stayed unconscious a few moments longer.
The Negatives:
As we left the theater, my husband asked, “So what did you think?”
I replied, “I think that was a very well done movie about one man adrift on a yacht trying to survive a storm at sea. My question is, did we really need a movie about one man adrift on a yacht trying to survive a storm at sea?”
That’s the thing about All is Lost. It doesn’t feel particularly timely or necessary to me—especially one year after Life of Pi. Who is “our man” really? (That’s what they call him in the hilarious cast list in the credits. Underneath the centered heading Cast, it just says Our Man….Robert Redford, and then there’s a big empty space until the next heading. That giant gap must have brought a grin to the faces of the people in charge of making the credits.)
We don’t know much about the protagonist. The note he writes in the opening sequence is quite provocative. It gives us all we need to understand the point of the film but tells us just enough about our man to make us sure we need to know more.
So if pressed to express my major grievance succinctly, I suppose I’d have to ask with a shrug, “So? Who cares?”
I would really love to know what this man is doing on his yacht in the Indian Ocean in the first place. The last line of his letter made me think of Christopher McCandless from Into the Wild. Why isn’t our man with his family? What has happened? Why is he instead alone on a yacht? What is he trying to achieve? It’s a bit of a puzzle. I can appreciate that the mystery makes the movie more profound, but some answers might make it a bit more watchable.
Another thing that bothered me about the film is that it opens with a very depressing thought and then gives you seemingly infinite moments of silence to turn the idea over in your head and ponder your mortality.
I wish I could talk more about the ending. I’d also like to talk more about our man’s philosophy, sense of self/faith/God/reality. The thing is, hardly anything happens in the movie, so if I say much about the few events that do happen, I’m spoiling the whole thing. I guess you should go see the film if you’re interested, and then we’ll talk.
Overall:
All Is Lost has flashes of brilliance. Its final scene is surprisingly powerful, and its lone star gives an exhausting, captivating performance that should get him an Oscar nomination at least. If, like me, you’ve seen few of Robert Redford’s films, then you might want to start catching up here because he’s doing wonderful work, potentially the best of his career. (I haven’t seen enough of his films to confirm that personally, but everybody’s saying so!)
If you’re a fan of Redford or you follow the Oscars, you should definitely see All is Lost. It is a carefully made film. One caveat, though, if you’re only going to see one movie this holiday season, All is Lost is not what you’re looking for. This isn’t a rollicking adventure at sea for the entire family. Let me give you an idea of what it’s like to watch. There is one person in the movie. He’s alone at sea the whole time. He loudly yells a single four-letter word once, mutters under his breath maybe two or three times, and otherwise never speaks. The movie delivers exactly what it promises, so you’ll have to decide for yourself if you want to buy a ticket.