Taglines: Never give up.
Deep into a solo voyage in the Indian Ocean, an unnamed man (Robert Redford) wakes to find his 39-foot yacht taking on water after a collision with a shipping container left floating on the high seas. With his navigation equipment and radio disabled, the man sails unknowingly into the path of a violent storm. Despite his success in patching the breached hull, his mariner’s intuition and a strength that belies his age, the man barely survives the tempest.
Using only a sextant and nautical maps to chart his progress, he is forced to rely on ocean currents to carry him into a shipping lane in hopes of hailing a passing vessel. But with the sun unrelenting, sharks circling and his meager supplies dwindling, the ever-resourceful sailor soon finds himself staring his mortality in the face.
vAll Is Lost is a survival film written and directed by J. C. Chandor. The film stars Robert Redford as a man lost at sea. Redford is the only cast member, and the film has almost no dialogue. All Is Lost is Chandor’s second feature film, following his 2011 debut Margin Call. It screened out of competition at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
About the Story (2013)
Somewhere in the Indian Ocean (“1700 nautical miles from the Sumatra Straits”), a man (Robert Redford) says, “I’m sorry. I know that means little at this point, but I am. I tried. I think you would all agree that I tried. To be true, to be strong, to be kind, to love, to be right, but I wasn’t.” He declares, “All is lost.”
Eight days earlier, as he wakes up, he sees that water has started to flood his boat, the Virginia Jean, a Cal 39 yacht.[B] He goes out onto the deck and sees that his boat has collided with a wayward shipping container which has ripped a hole in the hull. He goes below to get a sea anchor and ties it to the container.[C] After dislodging the container, he goes to work patching up the hole in his boat and uses the manual- or hand-bilge pump hole to remove the water from the cabin.
After the cleanup, he finds that the boat’s navigational and communications systems have been damaged from the collision. He tries to repair the radio and connects it to one of the boat’s batteries but is ultimately unsuccessful. When he climbs the mast to repair an antenna lead, he sees an oncoming tropical storm. He immediately descends to make preparations for it.
The storm quickly reaches his position, and he runs before the wind under bare poles for a while, until he feels this storm tactic becomes too tiresome and dangerous. He intends to bring the boat into a hove-to position, but when crawling to the bow to hoist the storm jib, he is thrown overboard and only just regains the deck after a long struggle. The boat capsizes and turtles, and after a further 180-degree roll, is dismasted, and most of the equipment on board destroyed. With the boat badly holed and sinking, he decides to abandon ship in an inflatable life raft, salvaging whatever he can to survive.
As he learns how to operate a sextant he recovered from the boat, he discovers he is near one of the major shipping lanes and, a day or two later, finds that he is being pulled towards it by ocean currents. During the journey, he survives another storm. But his supplies dwindle, and he learns too late that his drinking water has been contaminated with sea water. He improvises a solar still from his water container and a plastic bag to get fresh water.
All Is Lost (2013)
Directed by: J.C. Chandor
Starring: Robert Redford
Screenplay by: J.C. Chandor
Production Design by: John P. Goldsmith
Cinematography by: Frank G. DeMarco, Peter Zuccarini
Film Editing by: Pete Beaudreau
Costume Design by: Van Broughton Ramsey
Set Decoration by: Ramírez Gabriela
Music by: Alex Ebert
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for brief strong language.
Studio: Roadside Attractions
Release Date: October 18, 2013
Visits: 37
