All Is Lost (2013)

Robert Redford is quietly circumnavigating somewhere in his yacht when he wakes up with a puncture. During the night, the boat has clashed with a ten ton piece of flotsam and is holed above the waterline. He’s not unduly worried as he can still navigate freely and has plenty of supplies, but a series of storms soon reduce him to living in his life raft, creatively desalinating his water and hoping he can manoeuvre his way into the shipping lanes where one of the great freighters who caused his predicament in the first place might be able to help him. What chance rescue? There is virtually no dialogue, save for the odd SOS attempt on the wireless, and so we are left like a fly-on-the-mast observing as he has to survive the worse that the ocean can throw at him, plot his course and attract the attention of those skyscraper-esque vessels as the last thing their lookouts (assuming they have any) expect to see in the middle of nowhere is a bloke on a rubber dinghy! It’s a slowly paced drama, this, so don’t expect too much to happen minute by minute, but as we watch this man use his ingenuity to survive it becomes quite an intensely photographed and compelling feature with us far from certain that he, even if he is Robert Redford, will make it to safety. I love boats, especially with a glass of Veuve Clicquot and the odd prawn sandwich. This one, though, maybe not so much.