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[[File:castaway.gif|frame]]
Chuck Noland has everything: a successful, high-paying job, a woman who loves him, and enough money to buy anything he wants. The only thing he doesn't have enough of... is time. This changes when he is in a plane crash and, finding himself the sole survivor, makes his way to an uninhabited island where he has to figure out how to survive. Now Chuck has all the time he could ever want... and nothing else but his own wits, his two hands, and a volleyball for companionship.
If anything, like a modern day [[
[[Tom Hanks]] tries to make a dramatic and emotional movie wherein 80% of its 2 1/2-hour length is him, alone, on a remote island, talking to a volleyball.
{{tropelist|Tropes in '''''Cast Away''''' are [[Product Placement|
* [[Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder]]: Interestingly, {{spoiler|Kelly was fully willing to drop her new husband for Chuck, but [[Did Not Get the Girl|both Chuck and Kelly realize that being together would be impossible]].}}
** It's an interesting bit of trivia that according to the commentary that the scene
* [[The Aloner]]
* [[At the Crossroads]]:
* [[Beard of Barbarism]]: Chuck has plenty of time to grow some pretty wild facial hair during his time on the island.
* [[Bloody Handprint]]: Wilson.
* [[Brick Joke]]: At the start of the movie the female welder sends a FedEx package to her husband in Moscow, who we see is cheating with a young Russian girl. At the end of the movie his name has been cut away from the sign above the entrance to her house.
* [[California Doubling]]
* [[Can You Hear Me Now?]]: Portrayed realistically here.
▲* [[California Doubling]] : The movie was filmed on one of the small uninhabited islands belonging to [[Useful Notes/Fiji|Fiji]], even though the movie's island is supposed to lie somewhere south of the Cook islands.
* [[Chekhov's Armoury]]: After a while, Chuck opens the Fed Ex boxes that washed ashore with him, and the contents appear to be comically useless for his situation: video tapes, a volleyball, ice-skates and such. He finds a use for all of them, ''especially'' the volleyball.
** In an interesting case, the writers chose these items by drawing them from dozens of others out of a hat, then asking survival experts how they could be used.
* [[Chekhov's Gunman]]: As mentioned under [[Gallows Humor]], Chuck remembers his dentist was Dr. Spaulding. When he returns, he discovers
** Also qualifies as [[Chekhov's Gag]] as the audience assumes it's a throwaway line.
* [[Chekhov's Hobby]]
* [[Climactic Music]]: There is no music until {{spoiler|after Chuck escapes the island}}. The first musical cue is ''powerful''.
* [[Companion Cube]]: Wilson the volleyball, whom Chuck talks to in order to keep from going insane due to loneliness.
** Or possibly ''because'' he is beginning to [[Go Mad From the Isolation|go insane]].
* [[Deserted Island]]: 80% of the movie.
* [[Did Not Get the Girl]]: And it makes sense, too.
* [[Driven to Suicide]]: {{spoiler|It's gradually revealed that Noland tried to hang himself.}}
{{quote|
* [[Exact Time to Failure]]
* [[Expository Hairstyle Change]]: By this time, Wilson is Chuck's BFF.
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* [[Gallows Humor]]: With a rotten tooth Chuck mentions to Wilson that his dentist back home was Dr. Spaulding.
* [[Genre Savvy]]: He's well aware that fictional portrayals of being on a desert island aren't realistic, and have left him unprepared.
{{quote|
* [[Go Mad From the Isolation]]
* [[The Great Politics Mess-Up]]: At the beginning of the film, Chuck was setting up a Fed Ex office in Moscow, where they were still taking down pictures of Lenin and wowed by Snickers bars and [[Elvis Presley]] CDs.
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* [[Irony]]: Plenty of this when Noland returns to the abundant world of civilization. His 'welcome back' dinner consists mostly of seafood. His Swiss Army knife is attached to the keys he left with Helen. And light and fire is now available at the click of a switch.
* [[I Want My Beloved to Be Happy]]: {{spoiler|Chuck refuses to come between Kelly and her new husband.}}
* [[Large Ham]]: Chuck - after lived several years in the savage jungle everyone would become this.
* [[Legally Dead]]: Chuck finds himself in this state after being stuck on the island for five years.
* [[Loners Are Freaks]]: What Chuck becomes, although he at least seems to regain his sanity once he makes it back to civilization.
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* [[Meaningful Name]]: The shortened form of Chuck Noland's name is C. Noland: See No Land.
* [[Misplaced Wildlife]]: Averted, because there's ''no freaking wildlife'' except for the fish and crabs that Chuck catches for food.
** And maybe some sea birds, but we don't get to see any. The portrayal of the island as a vaguely primordial ecosystem (very little wildlife, only a few dominant species of plants) that can barely even support a small human population [[Shown Their Work|is fully in line with how such small Polynesian islands look like]]. It was shot on one of the more remote islands of Fiji (geographic border of Melanesia/Polynesia) and it shows...
* [[Mr. Exposition]]: A different take on this trope; Wilson serves as a means by which Tom Hanks' character can explain things to the audience.
* [[Music Video Syndrome]]: Rejected. While Tom Hanks's character is stranded on the desert island (the bulk of the movie), there is no background music at all.
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* [[Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated]]
* [[Robinsonade]]
* [[Say My Name]]:
* [[Scenery Porn]]: But totally necessary, so we the audience know just how alone and isolated Chuck Noland really is when he's on that island.
* [[Screw the Pain Medication]]: Chuck removes a bad tooth with an ice skate and rock without any anesthetic.
* [[Setting Update]]: ''Cast Away'' is ''[[
* [[Sole Survivor]]: Chuck.
* [[Stood Up]]: Type 5.
* [[Stranger in
* [[Surrogate Soliloquy]]: The writers even gave dialogue for Wilson's (imagined) half of the conversation.
* [[Taught By Experience]]: A great demonstration here. A survivalist he wasn't, at first.
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* [[The Tooth Hurts]]: Chuck already has a bit of a toothache before he gets stranded on the island, but it only gets worse once he's there, forcing him to remove the rotten tooth. With an ice skate and a rock. Feel free to faint now.
* [[Trailers Always Spoil]]: Seriously. Don't watch the trailer until you've seen the film.
** Even more
* [[The Un-Reveal]]: We never find out what's in the last FedEx box. Hell, we never even find out why he didn't open it
** One popular theory is that the wings on the package were a symbol of hope for Chuck.
** Another is that he left one package to keep himself grounded. "I'm still a civilized human being, isolated in survival mode or not. Someday I will deliver this package, dammit!"
* [[Unstoppable Mailman]]: Even after being stranded on an island for years, he still delivers the last package
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Films of the 2000s]]
[[Category:Cast Away]]
[[Category:Film]]
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