All Is Lost

A man alone on a sailboat deep in the Indian Ocean (Robert Redford) is beset by a series of disasters, beginning with a collision with a derelict cargo container—and getting worse from there. Redford is the entire cast, and we don't even know his character's name (he's identified in the credits only as “Our Man”). With no one to talk to, he speaks hardly a word, facing each crisis with a preternatural calm, sinking almost imperceptibly into despair. It's a one-man show, all right, but the one man isn't Redford, it's writer-director J.C. Chandor (Margin Call), who turns in a virtuoso performance in both areas. Comparison with Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity is unavoidable, and it's high praise that Chandor's movie holds up under it—it's not as tense as Gravity, but just as suspenseful, and almost as exhilarating.