Review of All Is Lost (2013) by He H — 28 Mar 2014

This film teases and emotes at an agonizingly torpid pace, though superbly. For example, sharks, being a stalwart in these types of films, and a realistic constant, don't make an appearance until around 3/5 of the way through.

Even then, the greatest thrill generated by virtue of the selachimorphs is stealing a fish off a line. This underplay is fascinating in its own right, but it is the gradual introduction of sharks that is most compelling.

A transition from protist, to nudibranch, to small fish, to sizeable fish, to a congregation of sharks maked their presence all the more thrilling. One in a long line of magna opera for Redford, and, as I suspect, an early entry of what may become a similar ledger for J.

C. Chandor, the film portrays calamity at sea as mundane, almost quotidian early on, which adds undeniable potency to later happenings. An extreme aberration, though, that the actor who graces the screen for nearly the entire picture has less speaking lines than the other character.

Yes, its purely Redford and the pelagic expanse.