Published July 26, 2020
Whatever else Tom Hanks is doing in a movie, more often than not, he is breathing. You might be surprised by how often that isn’t always a given his character can count on.
When the lunar module for the mission that gives “Apollo 13” its name threatens the lives of the crew due to rising carbon dioxide levels, his Commander Jim Lovell tells the other two astronauts, “Just breathe normal, fellas.” Nearly every minute after that is a race against time and the possibility that all three will breathe their last breaths in outer space.
In “Splash,” his first major film, we come to a point where we wonder how he — a human named Allen Bauer — can be able to breathe under water, but we can be forgiven because until then we didn’t know much about mermaid magic. In “Joe Versus the Volcano,” his title character sets off on an adventure after being told he has an incurable disease that soon will have him breathing his last breath. In “Philadelphia,” AIDS eventually does just that. In several other films, we see the end of his life.
In real life, Hanks has been in the news this year for surviving the novel coronavirus. He and his wife, Rita Wilson, were diagnosed with it in March, back when it was thought of as primarily a respiratory disease. Thankfully, Hanks and Wilson are both still breathing, even after COVID-19 has shown us that it is far more complicated and elusive than we thought at the time.
In two notable movie roles that come to mind, Hanks talks about the need to continue to breathe after suffering a loss — in both cases, the loss of a woman he loves. In “Sleepless in Seattle,” it’s his wife, whose burial is the opening scene of the movie. On a Christmas Eve call-in radio show where his grief and loneliness become the focus, the host asks him what he’s going to do, having given up on finding that kind of love a second time.
“Well, I’m … I’m going to get out of bed every morning, breathe in and out all day long, and then after a while, I won’t have to remind myself to get out of bed in the morning and breathe in and out. And then after a while, I won’t have to think about how I had it great and perfect for a while.”
In “Cast Away,” it’s Christmastime again. His character’s FedEx jet goes down in the Pacific Ocean, and he is stranded on a desert island for four years. The movie is short on speeches. In fact, there are long stretches where he doesn’t say anything at all. (I once caught the story in progress and watched for a long time before realizing it was on HBO Latino, and that someone else was voicing Hanks’ Chuck Noland in Spanish.)
After he’s rescued, he’s reunited with the woman he had planned to marry. Just before leaving on the ill-fated flight, he had given her one more Christmas present, which we are meant to assume is an engagement ring. Back in Memphis four years later, visiting with her at the home she has since made with her husband and daughter, they realize that what they are together for now is to say a proper goodbye to the relationship and dreams they’d had. After a kiss in the rain at night where her driveway meets the road, they have that.
“We both had done the math,” he later tells a friend from work. “Kelly added it all up, knew she had to let me go. I added it up, knew that I had … had lost her — cause I was never gonna get off that island. I was gonna die there, totally alone. I mean, I was gonna get sick or I was gonna get injured or something. The only choice I had, the only thing I could control was when and how and where that was gonna happen. So, I made a rope and I went up to the summit to hang myself. I had to test it, you know. Of course — you know me.”
The test was a failure.
“The weight of the log snapped the limb of the tree, so I … I … I couldn’t even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over nothing.”
He continues, his friend sitting quietly and listening.
“And that’s when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow.”
This is when Chuck Noland starts sounding a lot like grief-stricken Sam Baldwin from “Sleepless in Seattle.”
I had to keep breathing, even though there was no reason to hope. And all my logic said that I would never see this place again. So that’s what I did. I stayed alive, I kept breathing, and one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in and gave me a sail. And now here I am. I’m back — in Memphis, talking to you. I have ice in my glass. And I’ve lost her all over again. I’m so sad that I don’t have Kelly, but I’m so grateful that she was with me on that island.”
And like Sam …
I know what I have to do now: gotta keep breathing, because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring.”
This blog post took way too long to write, in part because I have tens of thousands of more words inside me about “Cast Away” and these quotes and surviving and reminding myself to keep breathing. Also, I included the quotes in a 2013 email to a dear friend who suffered an unspeakable tragedy and loss a few years earlier. I have all the feels about that right now.
“Point: Tom Hanks is a big believer in breathing,” I wrote to her.
Yesterday, beaten down by the trauma of the pandemic and all the rest, I had very little hope. After I shared that on social media, a lot of people rushed to comfort me and offer an ear if I needed someone to listen. The day ended on a high note. I was reminded of how, years ago, ready to call it quits, I chose to stick around, if only to see how the story ends. It was my way of saying “Who knows what the tide could bring.”
I hope there is someone with you on your island, even if you are physically alone. I’m so sad about so much, but I’m so grateful for everyone who is with me on my increasingly remote island.
Keep breathing (but please, wear a mask if you go out in public).
Photo of Monuriki, an island in Fiji where “Cast Away” was filmed, by Paolo Ponga/via Shutterstock.