Just a few weeks after Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity showed astronauts struggling to keep from floating off into the void, J.C. Chandor’s one-man-against-nature drama All is Lost shows up, starring Robert Redford and nobody else. It’s him against the elements, in a damaged 39-foot yacht deep in the Indian Ocean.

My review is at PopMatters; here’s part:

“I think you would all agree,” Robert Redford narrates over the start of All Is Lost, “that I tried.” But for a couple muttered curses and some dry-throated shouts, this sentence plus a few others spoken to unknown persons are the sum total of what Redford’s unnamed character says during J.C. Chandor’s movie. Like his Margin Call, the new film shows the filmmaker’s precision and calculation. Although the story of All Is Lost might be quickly summarized as a man sailing a yacht in the middle of the ocean runs into trouble, the film doesn’t play with form or pad out its running time. There is greatness in this simplicity. If only Redford had been up to the challenge…

The trailer is here: