Film Review: "All Is Lost" (2013).

"Never Give Up." This is All Is Lost. This survival drama film written and directed by J. C. Chandor. Deep into a solo voyage in the Indian Ocean, an unnamed man (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.

During his time commuting from Providence, Rhode Island to New York City, Chandor developed the idea for the film. In late January 2011, at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival where Margin Call premiered, Chandor asked Robert Redford to be in the film, and Redford accepted. In early February 2012, it was confirmed that Redford was cast as its only cast member. In addition, Redford also stated that the film has no dialogue, although there are a few spoken lines. For these reasons, the shooting script was only thirty-one pages long. In early June, principal photography commenced, and took place in Nassau, New Providence Island, Bahamas, and at Fox Baja Studios in Rosarito, Baja California Norte, Mexico. Baja Studios was originally built for the 1997 film Titanic. Chandor would later remark that completing the film was "essentially a jigsaw puzzle" and that the crew spent less time on the actual ocean than the film would have viewers believe. For Redford the most grueling aspect of the shoot was not the stunts, most of which he insisted on performing himself, but the dismal daily routine of being perpetually waterlogged throughout the production. During the filming Redford was so repeatedly soaked by a huge water hose, he suffered an infection in his left ear that ultimately cost him sixty percent of his hearing. In November, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros' frontman Alex Ebert was hired to compose the film's score.

The film stars Redford. Though Redford comes across as blandly as ever, at least his solid performance shows he's up to carrying half a movie on his own thanks to Chandor's direction is at first as busily efficient as the protagonist. Redford conducts a master class in acting by showing a man never losing his sense of himself in fractional gradations. For much of the time, Redford is on screen by himself, his only facial and body language is addressed to the audience. A lesser performer would have made it a confusing ordeal.

Flawed but fascinating, All Is Lost offers a solid script, some of Chandor's most mature directing, and a showcase performance from Redford.

Simon says All Is Lost receives:

Also, see my review for Margin Call.