Castaway – 1986 | 117mins | Adventure, Drama | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Nicolas Roeg directed this strikingly beautiful adventure loosely based on Lucy Irvine’s bestseller of her own experiences as a voluntary castaway. Roeg’s most accessible work features an assortment of lush visuals but is sadly letdown by an unimaginative script and over-emphasis on filming Donahoe from different angles in a state of undress.

Middle-aged divorcee and publisher Gerald Kingsland (Oliver Reed) advertises in Time Out magazine for a female companion to join him for a year on the desert island of Tuin in the tropics. He is responded to by bored London tax clerk Lucy Irvine (Amanda Donohoe). The first signs of trouble arise when the Queensland government decree that to stay on the Pacific island Gerald and Lucy must be married – which she reluctantly agrees to. On the island, Gerald and “Girl Friday” Lucy romp around au natural and an antagonistic relationship gradually develops.

They try not to get in each other’s way; whilst Gerald indolently lounges about, Lucy romps along the beach in the all-together, increasingly maddened at her fellow castaway’s slovenly attitude and unwanted sexual advances. Soon they realise paradise isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and mutual dependence is the only recipe for survival when Gerald suffers a foot infection and Lucy begins to drastically lose weight. After a year of tension, turmoil and bliss, they go their separate ways.