All is Lost

Film In Focus

By Jonathon Saia

All Is Lost (Lionsgate, 2013) – Director: J.C. Chandor. Writer: J.C. Chandor. Stars: Robert Redford. Color, Rated PG-13, 106 minutes.

Some films are easy to embrace: an intricate plot or some witty dialogue or a familiar milieu, and our participation is almost automatic. But other films, like All is Lost, seem to creep up on us from a distance like a tidal wave, enveloping us in its simple beauty before it destroys us.

The plot is incredibly simple: Man at sea. Boat is damaged. Will he survive? Think of it as a sister film to Gravity (2013). Both films' inciting incidents are the destruction of the vessel and both films boast wonderful (almost) solo performances. But in Gravity, we are put on alert, thrust to the edge of our seats in danger for 90 minutes of adrenaline; in All is Lost, our hero goes about his business patching the holes without panic. We get the feeling he has been through all of this before. In Gravity, Sandra Bullock talks through her crises; in All is Lost, Robert Redford remains stoic and silent (the film contains roughly two minutes of dialogue without even a washed up volleyball to absorb his fears). Bullock, named Ryan Stone, is given a back story with the memory of a dead daughter haunting our heroine and prompting her suicide attempt when all is (presumably) lost; Redford, named simply Our Man, is given no history at all, which makes his suicide attempt near the final moments of the film less dramatic, yet more poignant. We are not concerned for his well-being for his own sake or even for those who may grieve back on land; we are concerned for his safety because we have grown to love him and don't want him to leave us.

But the biggest difference comes in the execution of the material. Where Alfonso Cuaron wows you with Gravity's effects, its IMAX wonder, and breathtaking cinematography (including that stellar unbroken 13 minute opening shot), and yes, Bullock's performance, All is Lost has but one trick up its sleeve: Robert Redford's weathered face. 

To anchor a 100-minute silent film in a world usually populated by jet skis, speedboats, pirates, or an endless variety of explosions, a major star is not only preferable, but necessary. We need to be invested in his safety and able to project our own ideas of his history (especially when Chandor gives us nothing to go on). And Redford is the perfect choice. Of the other actors of his generation, stature, and athleticism that could have been cast, Warren Beatty would have been too sophisticated and Clint Eastwood would have been too untouchable.

We would never buy Warren as the rugged type, able to harangue a boat during two storms; and Clint would be too much of a desperado, able to stop the seas with his cock-eyed glare. But Redford, equally at home on a ranch in Utah or the Governor's Ball, projects the requisite amount of knowledge and confidence without the swag and devil-may-care pomposity that Jack Nicholson or Al Pacino would have brought to the role. We buy him as a competent sailor, but not one who sails for a living. One of the film's best touches is when Our Man needs to send up a flair to passing ships, he doesn't just rip open the package and wave them to glory; Chandor takes the time to show Redford reading the instructions on how to use them. In a film void of histrionics or swelling music, this serves as the highest of stakes.

The glory of Redford's performance is his grace under pressure. Nothing seems to phase this guy. The boat is damaged. He will fix it. The boat is sinking. He will grab the necessary things and abandon ship. In fact, the first 30 minutes of the film before the storm drag so much and if watched at home may even prompt you – beg you – to turn it off. When I saw this in the theatre, I found myself longing to walk out like the two people in the row next to me. But in retrospect, these scenes, this embracing of ennui, this pull-your-hair-out back and forth from the life raft to the sail boat captures, as films rarely do, real life – those moments that other films cut out because they are dubbed "unnecessary". But in All is Lost they are vital. We are watching the maintenance of a ship, the preparation of a departure, the desperate attempts at saving, perhaps, his home. The inflation of a life raft. The process of making seawater drinkable. The reading of a manual to properly use a navigation device. The survival of a man by doing everything in his power. These are the cruxes of the drama.

And Redford is so seasoned, so comfortable in front of the camera that it is not so much a "performance," as much as it is just "being". He is so wonderfully understated that when he finally yells, "Fuck" after the passing of the first potential chance he has at survival, we lean forward on the edge of our seats in heartbreak. In a year that was jam packed with brilliant performances and masterpieces (such as Allen’s Blue Jasmine, Russell’s American Hustle, Jonze’s Her, Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, the aforementioned Gravity, and Best Picture 12 Years a Slave), Redford and All is Lost were unfortunately left out to sea when Oscar nominations rolled around.

With a title as fatalistic as All is Lost, as well as an opening voice-over narration presumably sealing his fate, you go into the film waiting for him to die. Even with the prerequisite American Happy Ending buoying in the back of your brain, you expect that he will succumb to the elements – and embrace this possibility; anything less would be contrived. But as Redford begins to sink into the possibly shark-infested waters (reminding us of the beautiful shot of Shelley Winters floating in the lake in The Night of the Hunter, 1955), we hold out hope that somehow, someway, someone will save Our Man – ourselves – from a watery death. I won't tell you how it ends, but I dare you not to be moved by the final ethereal shot, invoking The Creation of Adam. It is one of the most moving last shots in recent memory and left my mouth agape, stuck to my chair in pure awe. See All is Lost. And see it alone.