“At the edge of the world the journey begins”
PRODUCTION :
Robert Zemeckis
Steve Starkey
Jack Rapke
Tom Hanks
DIRECTION:
Robert Zemeckis
Alan B. Curtiss(Assistant director)
Josh McLaglen (Assistant director)
STORY :
William Broyles Jr.
Technical Crew:
ART DIRECTORS:
Jim Teegarden
Stefan Dechant
Elizabeth Lapp
PRODUCTION SUPERVISER:
Peter Toby Tobyansen
VIDEO ENGINEER:
Ian Kelly
MUSIC :
Alan Silvestri
CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Don Burgess
EDITING :
Arthur Schmidt
DISTRIBUTION:
20th Century Fox
DreamWorks
Story :
The film starts with a FedEx van entering a farm named DICK BETTINA owned by a person named Mrs.Peterson where she hands over a package to the FedEx employee to be delivered to her husband who is in Russia.
Later the film moves on with the introduction of Chuck Noland(Tom Hanks) whio works as a system analyst for FedEx. He keeps on insisting the value of time to his colleagues and always ask them to stick to time that needs to be their main objective. In Russia he then fastens everything up for a delivery of packages that needs to be loaded into the FedEx plane headed to Memphis America within a time of 15 minutes. Before leaving Russia Chuck Noland calls Kelly Frears(Helen Hunt) with whom he has been living for a long time and leaves her the message that he is leaving shortly to Memphis.
Later he boards the plane with his co worker Stan(Nick Searcy ) whose wife is seriously ill. When they reach Memphis Chuck Noland promises Stan to get him the contact number of a doctor in Atlanta whom he hopes to cure the illness of Stan’s wife.
Later when Chuck Noland sits with his family and friend’s for dinner on Christmas eve he receives a message for an urgent assignment and he needs to go overseas. He then leaves for the airport with his fiance Kelly Frears(Helen Hunt). At the airport in the car she hands over an old pocket watch with her photo in it as Christmas present to Chuck Noland and he in turn hands over a gift to her and asks her to open it on New year eve.
Later he boards the plane .While the plane is flying somewhere over the Pacific it loses its signal and the bad weather makes the situation worse that the plane loses control and crashes into the ocean somehow Chuck Noland tries to escapes death with a small life boat.
In the morning he finds himself on the shore of an Island all alone. He also finds out that his pager and the pocket watch don’t work anymore.he then collects some packages being which the waters bring to the shore from the crashed airplane. He goes through the Island to see if he could find someone but finds none. At night he gets frightened by some unusual banging sounds.
The next morning he again collects some packages that have been washed to the shore meanwhile he hears the sound again and finds it out to be the sound created by coconuts falling from trees. He then collects them and tries to break them but everything goes in vain after which he finds out a method and quenches his thrist.
Later he check out a a cave in nearby mountain while he gets the package bearing the symbol of DICK BETTINA(Wings of angels circled by holy rings). He then makes himself a pair of shoe like covering for his toes by tearing half of his pant and heads to the mountain top .
From there he spots an image being brought to the island by the waters. As runs to it he finds it to be the corpse of one of the pilots named Albert R Miller of the FedEx plane that got crashed. Having no other choice left he takes away the pilot’s shoes and his torch before burying him. He sleeps every night thinking of Kelly Frears. At day time he collects rain water from leaves for drinking. He also tries to catch fish but couldn’t.
Later he leaves the island with his life boat on seeing a light far away. Unfortunately he gets his boat damaged and leg hurt after being hit by a a big tide. Later that night he seeks refuge in a cave and finds his legs to be severly hurt.
He then opens all the packages he collected one by one in which he finds some video tapes, a pair of ice skating shoes ,a volleyball and a gown but he doesn’t open the package bearing the symbol of Dick Bettina.
He then realizes the need of fire to cook food and to warm him up he tries to make fire by rubbing a wooden stick to the bark of a tree but he gets hurt in his hands ,on seeing the blood he gets frustrated and throws everything in anger including the volley ball (Wilson) .
Few minutes later he finds the volleyball with his blood stains which resembles a face after which he makes a few changes to make it look like a face and names it Wilson and starts talking to it .Again he starts to make fire and all of a sudden he sees a flame ,thus makes fire and puts logs of wood into it to make it burn for a long time .He rejoices for having created fire all of his own for the first time in his life without match sticks, lighter etc.
It reveals the real pleasure a man gets on inventing something, the joy he experiences. Later on he cooks the crab he caught earlier and eats happily. Meanwhile his problem with his teeth worsens. He then removes the problematic teeth and four years pass by.
One day he finds a broken steel door washed to the shore which gives him a hope of building a small boat to escape from the island. He then prepares all the things necessary to build the boat and makes himself available with a large amount of rope.
After building the boat he waits for the wind to blow in the right direction and takes off with Wilson in the boat he built.He rows through tough tides and in storm and manages to survive somehow but unfortunately he loses Wilson the volleyball in the water .Fully tired and frustrated he lies down on the damaged boat when something very might passes beside him at a distance making a sound which he waited to hear for the past four years and there at a distance he saw thing giving the long awaited call, it was nothing but a big cargo ship . He is then rescued and sent back to Memphis in a plane where a huge crowd waits to welcome him . In the airport a person a person named Jerry Lovert introduces himself to Chuck Noland as Kelly’ husband and tells Chuck how he met Kelly and how they got married. He also added that Kelly was confused on Chuck’s return whom she thought to have been dead and said she could not meet him. Chuck Noland stands startled there on seeing Jerry Lovert driving Kelly Frears home.
The next day he goes to meet Kelly Frears at her place where she comes to know she has a baby and has a brief talk with her while he tells her that he should have never left their car four years back and he feels very sorry for leaving her .On hearing this she takes him to her garage and to Chuck’s great surprise she shows him his car the car which he drove to the airport with her four years back.
Chuck tells her how happy it was to see their car back and asks her for a ride and she hands over the keys to him. When he is half the way from her house she gets the feeling of losing something and shouts chuck’s name and runs to him and hugs him telling that she loves him. Chuck takes her in his car to her home and tells her that her family needs her. Later that night he tells his friend how he misses Kelly and he never thought he would be back to his homeland anyday .The next day he drives to the farm of Dick Bettina to deliver the package bearing the symbol of a pair of angel wings and holy rings. He finds no one there and he keeps the package at the doorstep with a note saying ”This package saved my life thanks Chuck Noland”.
While returning he stands at the edge of a road with a map to figure out which direction to go. A car coming that way stops and a lady gets down from the car asking him if he is lost ,when he answers yes she guides him as to which road leads where and leaves wishing him good bye. At the rear end of the vehicle he finds the sign that rescued his life which makes him look at the crossroads and smile.
About the film:
It is a film that makes everyone feel the difference and I recommend everyone to watch the film because it perfectly portrays the feelings and experiences of a person all alone and his only companion is nothing else but nature.
STARRING :
Tom Hanks
Helen Hunt
Chris Noth
Geoffrey Blake
Semion Sudarikov
Jenifer Lewis
Nick Searcy
Vince Martin
Lari White