J.C. Chandor’s All Is Lost has had its debut out in Cannes, and the early reviews are very promising.
The film is screening Out of Competition at the festival, so it of course won’t be winning Chandor or leading man Robert Redford any awards. But if the early buzz is to be believed, the film could well be a strong contender come Oscar time, and is positioned for an awards campaign with an October US release date already set.
Fresh from its debut out in France, the first clip has washed up online, giving us a look at the dialogue-less film.
Deep into a solo voyage in the Indian Ocean, an unnamed man wakes to find his 39-foot yacht taking on water after a collision with a shipping container left floating on the high seas. With his navigation equipment and radio disabled, the man sails unknowingly into the path of a violent storm. Despite his success in patching the breached hull, his mariner’s intuition and a strength that belies his age, the man barely survives the tempest.
Using only a sextant and nautical maps to chart his progress, he is forced to rely on ocean currents to carry him into a shipping lane in hopes of hailing a passing vessel. But with the sun unrelenting, sharks circling and his meagre supplies dwindling, the ever-resourceful sailor soon finds himself staring his mortality in the face.
Redford is the sole star of the film, and without a word of dialogue in the movie, it will be interesting to see how audiences beyond critics receive it later in the year.
Chandor is coming off the back of his Oscar-nominated debut as writer-director of the terrific Margin Call, and this promises to be a fascinating change of pace for his sophomore feature.
All Is Lost is set to be released in the US on October 25th. No word yet on a UK release date, but here’s to hoping we’ll be seeing it before the year’s end too, in plenty of time for the Oscars.
