American movies don’t come much bolder than All Is Lost, which dares to dispense with no fewer than three of the medium’s apparent essentials. First, its sole cast member is Robert Redford, who spends the entire film completely alone, interacting exclusively with inanimate objects. Second, it’s 99-percent dialogue-free, the only spoken words being a short letter read in voiceover at the outset, a futile effort to contact someone via radio in the middle, and some hoarse shouts near the end. Unlike Tom Hanks’ castaway, Redford’s desperate sailor doesn’t narrate his thoughts to a volleyball, or to anything else; he’s knowable only by his actions. Which brings us to the third, most audacious, and most crucial omission: All Is Lost features no backstory whatsoever. Writer-director J.C. Chandor (Margin Call) begins the film at the very instant that crisis strikes, then moves relentlessly forward, without the usual needless bids for pathos involving the protagonist’s troubled past. (For a current example, see Sandra Bullock’s daughter in Gravity.) Not every drama would benefit from being pared down to its essence in this way, but many surely would.
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