Review of All Is Lost (2013) by Wayne K — 07 Mar 2016

Truly redefining the word minimalistic, All Is Lost is not so much a piece of crowd-pleasing entertainment as it is a cinematic experiment. Many will be alienated by its leisurely pace and almost complete absence of dialogue.

I was at times, but when the movie offers up a good moment, it truly resonates. Largely done without music, as was done in the movie Cast Away, it gives a real feeling of desolation. Robert Redford brings dignity to the role, and while the character is devoid of any discernible personality, he has an ingenuity and drive that we can admire, and when he experiences the faintest glimmers of hope, we feel them too.

You would almost certainly never watch it a second time, and it lacks a lot of the emotional involvement found in other survival films. But it does paint an effectively bleak portrait of loneliness and perpetual despair, and gives one of the worlds most acclaimed actors an opportunity to deliver a performance that makes Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator look positively garrulous by comparison.