Essence of Human Nature in Cast Away (2000)
By Bork S. Nerdrum

What would you comfort yourself with on your cave walls if you stranded on an island and the only thing adjacent were FedEx packages – fish and coconuts?
Experimental – abstract – never-before-seen paintings?

Guess what – NO.

The shipping courier Chuck Noland in Cast Away (2000) is despondently drawing up human faces in his cavern.
Noland who had previously managed to preserve a locket with the image of his love during a plane crash in the Pacific Ocean – is stuck alone on an island for four years.
Every night before he goes to sleep he looks at the photograph of Kelly which he has copied in charcoal onto the wall.

Chuck Noland’s cave wall where he has represented human faces.

At the heart people always long for something that mirrors their own nature. Faces is one thing – dialogue is another.

In one of the FedEx packages that wash up on shore he finds a Wilson volleyball. Wilson becomes the mute friend whom Noland shares all his thoughts with.
He even gives the ball a human face colored in his own blood.

Their relationship has ups and downs like any friendship and Wilson is present when Noland is able to create fire for the first time.
At one point Noland angrily throws the ball out of his cave and into the sea. He immediately regrets it and frantically seeks Wilson out and apologizes to him in a beautiful but tragicomic way.
This scene serves as a warning for what will happen later on.

Chuck Noland’s first “meeting” with Wilson as he is trying to make fire.

Wilson freshly colored with Noland’s blood.

Noland has a friend that he talks to and he constantly draws faces on his cave walls but he cannot stay on the island and decides to leave his new home.

After a failed attempt to escape in an inflatable boat earlier on – he builds a raft and calculates the wind direction. On his second try he is successful and drifts out to sea with Wilson at his side.

But then something terrible happens:

Even a well written friendship about two human beings will have a hard time competing with Noland’s connection to Wilson the volleyball.
Noland literally sees his only friend in four years – with a human-like face – slip away into the open sea.

Cast Away reveals a lot about human nature – the essence of it.
When you are forced away from other people for a long time – you begin to represent human figures to comfort yourself in a lonely world.