Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.5

All Is Lost Blu-ray Movie Review

Gravity: Indian Ocean.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 7, 2014

What a difference a mere few weeks can make. As recently as December 2013, trade publications like Variety were full of speculation that this year’s Academy Awards would fête two lead performances that were more or less solo turns with little to no dialogue. The female side of this equation was Sandra Bullock in Gravity, while the supposed male honoree was deemed to be Robert Redford in All is Lost. Bullock is still in the running, and may indeed take home her second statuette for her adrenaline pumping role as newbie astronaut Ryan Stone, though the smart money is probably on Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine (a win which may be even more probable now, with some more prurient types wanting to see how she’ll handle the “Woody Allen issue” in her acceptance speech). But Robert Redford? He didn’t even snag a nomination, something the iconic actor took in stride after the nominees were announced, laying the blame squarely on an ineffective marketing campaign. It’s too bad, really, for All is Lost is certainly a tour de force from a pure performance perspective. Redford is really the only character on screen for the film’s running time, and as mentioned above, there’s barely a word of dialogue uttered throughout the entire film. What we’re left with instead is an incredibly visceral story of survival against incredible odds. Sound familiar? Of course it does—this film plays like a waterlogged cousin of Gravity. All is Lost also features a similar kind of technical mastery. While Gravity’s Alfonso Cuarón and his team spectacularly recreated the daunting problems Ryan faced in a weightless environment, they at least had the benefit of being able to digitally manipulate the cinematic environment in several cogent ways to help foster that illusion. All is Lost is obviously completely earthbound, and while much of the film was evidently done in a tank, there’s still somehow a more viscerally “real” feeling to seeing raging water pouring over the film’s unnamed hero than there perhaps is in the Cuarón film. Interestingly, there’s another connection between the films, in terms of a major plot conceit both share: in both of these outings, it’s “junk” floating around indiscriminately that wreaks the havoc from which the central characters spend the rest of the films trying to recover.

Writer-director J.C. Chandor, who made a bit of a (different kind of) splash a couple of years ago with Margin Call (a film I didn’t think was quite the unabashed masterpiece that others evidently did), starts All is Lost at the supposed end of the story. We hear Redford’s voice over narration, reading what is evidently a goodbye note to the world, insisting that he had “tried”. The film then segues back to the beginning of the character’s harrowing travails. It turns out that the man, a solo sailor aboard a large and well appointed yacht in the middle of the Indian Ocean, had collided with an abandoned shipping container in the middle of the night. The man wakes up to find the hull of his boat seriously compromised.

Chandor takes the man through his paces—repeatedly—as repair efforts present one obstacle after another to overcome. Redford, wordless, establishes instantly that the man is resourceful but also frightened and increasingly desperate. While the man is initially able to at least keep the boat afloat (if only barely), he’s hobbled by damaged radio equipment, which makes contacting the outside world impossible, and then, in a devastating blow, a ferocious storm which arrives and leaves him with a diminishing chance of survival.

Much like Ryan in Gravity, the man in All is Lost has to continually improvise, fashioning items out of found objects and moving from venue to venue as he attempts to weather the elements. Unlike Cuarón’s formulation, however, the man has literally no contact with anyone, despite his best efforts. It’s here that the film really proves its ingenuity as well as providing Redford with one of the greatest showcases of his long and eventful career. Gravity at least gives Ryan some other people to interact with at the beginning of the story, and a couple of brief interactions after that, but the man is, indeed, a man alone. There is one fleeting moment partway through the film where it seems like contact might be achieved, if only for an instant, but those hopes are dashed about as quickly as they are raised.

Chandor is on the record (including here on the Blu-ray) stating he had deep misgivings that the basic concept of All is Lost was too simple to sustain a full length feature. It's especially notable that Chandor knew going in that his one and only character would not have the benefit of interacting with other humans (as in Gravity) or even personified inanimate objects (like Tom Hanks did with "Wilson" in the long solo section of Cast Away). He needn’t have worried. This is one of the most audaciously exciting and ultimately moving pieces in recent memory. Anchored (no pun intended) by an absolutely commanding performance by Redford—who delivers it all without speaking, for the most part—the film is not only a testament to the human spirit, but to the craft of filmmaking as well.

All Is Lost Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

All is Lost is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Chandor and his DP Frank G. DeMarco utilized the Arri Alexa on the film, and it features a nicely detailed and generally sharp looking presentation. The collaborators also tend to use a kind of "jiggly cam" approach throughout large portions of the film, which simultaneously adds a touch of verité as well as a certain degree of softness. All is Lost depends on just a few isolated elements to provide pops of color. The open sea (whether actual locations or tank set) sequences are surprisingly monochromatic a lot of the time, cast in a kind of slightly gray-green ambience that doesn't offer much visual allure, but which appropriately mirrors the man's increasingly desperate straits. "Little" things like a red label on a life raft or some blue fabric on a masthead provide the only relief from an intentionally oppressive visual environment. Fine detail is quite exceptional in the many close-ups, revealing things like the extremely fine blonde hairs on Redford's arms.

All Is Lost Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A film without dialogue? Or even without a boisterous music score filled with ubiquitous, thumping source cues? How can anything like that provide reference quality audio? Well, folks, pull up a chair and prepare to be amazed: All is Lost's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is simply a wonder of impeccably nuanced sound design. Some of the elements are somewhat predictable, like a muffled, watery sound when Chandor shoots from underwater. But other moments are simply breathtaking, from the simple, almost palpable sounds of a breeze and waves gently lapping against the hull of the boat to the ferocious onslaught of a life threatening storm. It's a shame that Redford wasn't nominated for this film, but the sound editors did receive a well deserved nomination and could well take home the trophy.

All Is Lost Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Filmmaker Commentary includes J.C. Chandor (writer-director), Neal Dodson (producer) and Anna Gerb (producer) . This is a very interesting if also exceedingly low-key affair (all three of these participants are rather soft spoken). The most interesting aspects are some the of technical issues Chandor encountered while filming.


• The Story (1080p; 3:45) features interviews with cast (meaning Redford) and crew discussing an overview of the film's plot.


• The Filmmaker: JC Chandor (1080p; 3:17) profiles the film's writer-director, with Chandor discussing what drew him to the production and how we went about filming it.


• The Actor: Robert Redford (1080p; 4:25) profiles Redford, with interviews.


• The Sound of All is Lost (1080p; 11:59). For my money, this is the best featurette on the disc, detailing the film's impeccable sound design.


• Big Film, Small Film (1080p; 6:11) talks about the kind of strange middle ground this film stakes out between an independent production and a big budget special effects spectacular.


• Preparing for the Storm (1080p; 7:58) focuses on the huge storm scene and Chandor's storyboarding proclivities.

All Is Lost Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's no accounting for the vagaries of the film industry. Gravity took the movie world by storm this past year, while All is Lost seems to already be an also ran. This is a film that matches Gravity's majesty and celebration of the resiliency of the human spirit, and technically it's certainly close to being in the same league. If you can stand this much adrenaline in one sitting, this would make an excellent double feature with the Bullock film. The Blu-ray offers fantastic video and reference quality audio and the supplements, while relatively slight, are also very good. Highly recommended.