Beach Boy

In the movie world, there's a mile's worth of difference between having buzz and carrying baggage. If a movie has good buzz--and all buzz is good buzz--it means something in the zeitgeist has made people care about the film before it ever hits the theaters. Buzz is good for the bottom line. "X-Men" had about as much buzz as any movie in the last five years, and it opened to $54 million.

On the other hand, "Cast Away," the new film by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks, comes with baggage. Heavy baggage. Shooting for "Cast Away" began in January 1999, then stopped for a year while Hanks lost more than 50 pounds for the second part of the film. For two years, we've watched Tom Hanks' physical preparations for the role--losing weight, growing a rabbinical beard--on lots of magazine covers, in lots of interviews, and on many, many segments of "Access Hollywood."

And that was before "Survivor" struck. This summer, America spent three solid months obsessing over people stranded on a desert island, guaranteeing that, however unfairly, the public would juxtapose Rudy and Rich with Hanks.

Yet despite this baggage--in fact despite all its problems--"Cast Away" succeeds. Before Chuck Noland (played by Hanks) ends up marooned, we glimpse his life as a Federal Express troubleshooter. "We live and die by the clock," he tells a group of Russian Fed-Ex employees. Before launching off to solve yet another time crunch for Fed Ex, we also see him propose, on Christmas Eve, to his long-time girlfriend (Helen Hunt).

Then, for the next 90 minutes or so, Noland has nothing. No phones, no lights, no motorcars. Not a single luxury. What he does get to play off of are the fruits of Fed-Ex. Packages from the company plane he was on slowly wash ashore, and in these treasures he finds ice skates, a fancy cocktail dress, and a volleyball, each of which becomes crucial to his survival. The only package he doesn't open is one marked with a pair of angel wings, which becomes his talisman.

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