Cast Away

I'd almost forgotten about this film until I caught the last 45 minutes or so on cable one day a year or two ago. I got sucked in; I couldn't keep flipping channels. Then I wanted to see the film from the beginning without commercials.

Come to find out, you can get a used copy of the two-disc special edition for a few bucks. Done.

I have a book called The 3rd Act: Writing A Great Ending To Your Screenplay by Drew Yanno. Most screenwriting books focus a great deal on Act I and Act II, then seem to run out of gas with the discussion of how to write Act III. Yanno devoted a whole book to analyzing films with great endings (Cast Away), crappy endings (Minority Report), and controversial endings (Lost in Translation). In my dream seminar on screenwriting, Yanno's book is on the reading list.

From this point forward, I'm assuming you've seen this film. If you haven't, stop reading because I'm about to ruin the ending.

Yanno discusses Cast Away in great detail, paying special attention to the last few scenes, the first of which he calls the "Final Battle" (Chuck going to Kelly's house). Yanno's analysis is spot-on brilliant. The conversation is not a final battle in the traditional sense, but both of these characters must face each other before the story can move forward, and indeed, before either of them can move forward with their lives. What follows is the "Bridge" (Chuck visiting Stan in the middle of the night and having his moment of disclosure), which is needed to get at what Chuck is thinking in as short a span as possible so we can get to the resolution. Finally, there's what Yanno calls the "Ending" (little joke there). This is where Chuck personally delivers the last remaining unopened package from the plane crash and meets the recipient — the woman who makes the wings.

First, this ending is designed to break your heart but leave you with hope. Kelly is Chuck's reason for staying alive on the island, for wanting to go home. I mean, homesickness alone is one thing, but he didn't stare at a picture of his house for four years. He stared at a picture of her. Kelly gave him a watch for their last Christmas together, and Chuck set the watch to Memphis time — a sign of his devotion to her regardless of the time zone in which he found himself working. That watch stopped during the crash.

Time is a strong theme in Cast Away. Four years on the island. Chuck Noland's 1,500 days carved on the rock. FedEx packages delivered to beat the clock. But really, time is just some arbitrary measurement. Stripped of time, we have nothing left but everything else.

Cast Away does not have a traditional antagonist, and therefore does not have a traditional ending, but is all the more satisfying anyway. A true antagonist keeps the protagonist busy trying to solve problems. A true antagonist keeps the protagonist moving. Kelly, then, is every bit the antagonist of this film. She's not a villain. But she keeps Chuck going. Without Kelly, there's no reason for Chuck to try so damned hard to escape the island, to keep on living until the opportunity arose to return to her.

When I met Stephen J. Cannell in Chicago, he gave me the best bit of screenwriting advice: have a strong heavy. You need an antagonist, a compelling opposing force, to keep the plot moving. For Chuck, you can talk all about his toothache, or the storms, or starving, or injuring himself, or creating a fire, or getting off the island. But why was he doing all of that? Why did he want to survive? He kept looking at her picture. He flicked the light on and off, on and off, looking at her face. He wasn't looking at a picture of a steak. He wasn't looking at a bottle of water. Everything was for her.

I really could go on and on about William Broyles' script and Drew Yanno's analysis of the film. This is one of those films that makes me envious. I mean, the visual storytelling alone — Kelly opening the freezer door to get ice, which puts all of those new family's photos right in Chuck's face. The shot of Chuck's empty bed, accompanied by the light clicking on and off, because he's lying on the floor staring at her picture and blinking the light, as he did in the cave.

This film is designed to break your heart, like time does. But as long as there's some left, there's always hope, you know?