Upon his passing on the age of 89, Robert Redford was one of many final of his era of film stars. Whereas his heyday was inarguably the ’70s and ’80s, Redford continued to work properly into the brand new millennium, each as an actor and director, taking his final starring position in 2018’s The Outdated Man & the Gun. However 5 years earlier than that, Redford anchored one other movie from an up-and-coming indie director, which offered him with an excellent showcase for his understated abilities.
That might be 2013’s All is Misplaced, the second movie from author/director J.C. Chandor, who had made an enormous splash along with his 2011 debut Margin Name. However the place that film was fairly dialogue-heavy, All is Misplaced options virtually no spoken traces in any respect, following Redford as a anonymous man battling the weather in a harrowing story of survival. As the one actor on display, it is quite a bit to shoulder, however Redford carries it off with ease.
‘All is Misplaced’ Is Man vs. Nature at Its Greatest
As All is Misplaced begins, Redford’s character (identified within the credit solely as “Our Man”) wakes up on his sailboat, the Virginia Jean, to search out it quickly taking up water after colliding with an errant transport container. He is a reliable and succesful sailor, navigating the scenario calmly and rationally, and for some time, it looks like he is likely to be okay. He places a crude patch over the opening within the boat and pumps out the water earlier than making an attempt to radio for help. However all of the ability on the planet isn’t any match for the unpredictable energy of nature, which sends punishing storms, large winds, and a horde of sharks to check his mettle.
Our Man is a person of few phrases, and watching Redford try to unravel an more and more tough set of issues with very restricted instruments is undeniably gripping. Chandor would not actually fill the viewers in on who this man is or what is going on on in his head, however this solely serves to intensify the fundamental simplicity of the premise. The viewer would not really want to know a lot about this man to wish to see him survive, partly as a result of he is performed by Robert Redford, who communicates all we have to know by means of delicate actions and facial expressions. The haunted look in his eyes when he lastly has to desert his boat is as heartbreaking as any monologue.
When it was launched, some critics tried to search out some sort of bigger theme at play, however All is Misplaced resists simple evaluation. Given Redford’s age on the time (77), some thought of it a meditation on growing old, however it additionally resonates as a meditation on cinema itself. It stars one of many largest actors of the New Hollywood period, a interval marked by innovation and naturalism in cinema. It tells its story in the best way that solely cinema can: purely by means of pictures and sound.
How Redford Anchors ‘All is Misplaced’
The premise of All is Misplaced is such that, with a gifted filmmaker like Chandor on the helm, it will seemingly nonetheless have been good with one other star at its middle, however it seemingly would not have labored in addition to it does due to Redford. He possesses the magnetic display presence of the most effective film stars, in a position to talk a lot and not using a phrase. He principally underplays issues, not telegraphing Our Man’s concern or desperation, permitting the circumstances to talk for themselves. When he lastly does lose his cool after discovering out his ingesting water has been contaminated with salt, it is likely to be one of the vital well-earned expletives in film historical past.
Our Man of All is Misplaced is only one of many indelible roles Redford embodied over the course of his lengthy profession. Whereas it will not be held up alongside Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Child or All of the President’s Males, it is likely to be the purest instance of his singular abilities. It deserves to be remembered as one in every of his best achievements. All is Misplaced is streaming on Tubi.
- Launch Date
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August 23, 2013
- Runtime
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106 Minutes