All Is Lost

Robert Redford’s superb performance, most of it wordless, is the dramatic heart and soul of J. C. Chandor’s astonishing little lost-at-sea epic. But while Redford’s solitary mariner is the film’s lone character, All Is Lost is no one-man show. Instead, it’s a tour de force of filmmaking, an inspired collaboration of Redford and writer-director Chandor working in concert with a gifted crew. The story is simple enough: A man is struggling to survive in a sinking sailboat somewhere far from land in the Indian Ocean. The action is fast and furious throughout, but Chandor and company never lose sight of the story’s intertwined dramas—the physical battle against the elements and the more intimate one of a not-quite-lost soul facing the escalating evidence of his own insignificance. Pageant Theatre. Rated PG-13.