Did anyone here cry when 'Wilson' floated away?

[Greg]

Not me.

It was only a bloody volleyball and he was mentally ill by that stage.

I liked this movie, especially the bit where he gets on with his life.  But I found that moment saccharine and rather too Hollywood and OTT.

[martin88nyc]

It depends on how you look at it. If "Wilson" is the only thing that keeps Hanks going and gives him comfort in his struggle then you could argue in favor of this "dramatic" scene. 

[Gardener]

Wilson was a vehicle for hope: interaction (man is a social creature), a future beyond self, in a way Wilson was an idol gaining the {misappropriated} friendship of the main character. When he floated away, the only thing the main character had was himself; he was truly alone with no abstract companion. The delivery of this may have indeed been over the top, but the undercurrent of it was a story beginning in the primordial mythos of the human condition. That pang of realization at complete helplessness and loneliness was what made the scene powerful. From there he is rescued and goes back to the fictional externals of modern human society. In some ways, it was a story of modernist Godlessness.

[Greg]

Goes to show you that atheists and nihilists have nothing to offer.  A volleyball has some meaning (when needed), so why not a God?

Would be much more motivational.

I find the comments in the YouTube video rather "enlightening".

[Heinrich]

I didn't. Yet I tried to imagine myself in that situation and gave deference to the film advisors.

[MilesChristi]

It's a comical scene but I've only really seen it on its own

[Carleendiane]

I cried. But, I am a girl. I did not cry over the actual loss of wilson, it was more his bereft state of mind, his utter despair, his complete loss of focus, which wilson in a twisted way provided. Greg, you are too practical minded to cry over wilson. But me.....well, not one to cry easily over small things found this part of the movie very poingnant.

Wilson was not wilson but he was companion, society, counselor, and family to the poor guy. If I lost all that in one fell swoop I would certainly cry.

[Greg]

All those things require that you communicate.

Wilson was a volleyball.

[OCLittleFlower]

The part that stung and made me cry was seeing that his girlfriend had moved on.  All that time, hanging on by a thread, with nothing but a damned volleyball and the memory of the woman he loved and then...

[samguk yusa]

My brother did cry and though I didn't cry over that I cried in the first land before time and also when I heard a short story about a overworked horse.

[Serviam]

Only one scene in a movie has been worthy of my tears, a scene that is more heartbreaking than all heartbreaking movies combined! That scene obviously being the one when the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 T-800 lowers himself into the molten steel in Terminator 2: Judgement day.

"I'm sorry, John"

[Greg]

The part that stung and made me cry was seeing that his girlfriend had moved on.  All that time, hanging on by a thread, with nothing but a damned volleyball and the memory of the woman he loved and then...

Same.  My favourite bit was the soliloquy where he talks himself into "moving on" with his best friend in the room over a whiskey.  A masterclass of acting and precisely why I don't think he would have had a relationship with a volleyball in the first place.

[Gardener]

The part that stung and made me cry was seeing that his girlfriend had moved on.  All that time, hanging on by a thread, with nothing but a damned volleyball and the memory of the woman he loved and then...

Same.  My favourite bit was the soliloquy where he talks himself into "moving on" with his best friend in the room over a whiskey.  A masterclass of acting and precisely why I don't think he would have had a relationship with a volleyball in the first place.

People in survival situations, who actually survive, enter a different place in their head. Most people never get there without a situation necessitating it. Most cannot even imagine it, and we are left only with the testimony of those who have done it -- usually in the context of war.

What we don't see is where he is at in his head after rescue. It's all just glossed over. We don't see the lifting of the bed sheets to check for crabs or snakes seeking cover, despite knowing they should not be there. We don't see the life or death feeling of necessity in lighting the stove, despite the reality that he need not worry about wind killing the precious commodity of fire. We don't see the dissociative moment where he drinks from a cool, freshwater spring, while actually just running the tap. There are a lot of unanswered questions. It's all too neatly packaged.

[Jacob]

It's all too neatly packaged.

Don't be too harsh.  After all, we're talking about a movie by the guy who brought us Back to the Future.

[OCLittleFlower]

The part that stung and made me cry was seeing that his girlfriend had moved on.  All that time, hanging on by a thread, with nothing but a damned volleyball and the memory of the woman he loved and then...

Same.  My favourite bit was the soliloquy where he talks himself into "moving on" with his best friend in the room over a whiskey.  A masterclass of acting and precisely why I don't think he would have had a relationship with a volleyball in the first place.

I think what happened on the island is realistic.  Usually, someone like that will bond with something that's at least ALIVE (in other words, they will take an animal as a pet), but it's actually normal to go insane in such a situation.  Some soldiers have retained sanity, but often they had at least one buddy with them, and of course a lot more survival training than this guy had.  To live in such conditions without a dog or cat or hunting bird isn't good for human sanity, because we are social by nature.  The men who live as basically hermits on the Siberian Taiga a) do so by choice (no plane crash) and b) live and work closely with their dogs.  That, combined with knowing how to get to civilization if they need/want to, goes a long way toward staying sane.

Yes, he was mentally ill by the time Wilson washed out to sea.  But OF COURSE he would be struggling that way.