Fed Ex executive Tom Hanks takes what he thinks is a routine flight and ends up stranded on a desert island when his plane crashes and kills everyone else on board. As he realizes that no one is coming to save him, Hanks's character is forced to adapt to life alone on the island. The result is a tour-de-force of performance (Hanks spends the majority of the movie with no other actors to play off of) and visceral, experimental filmmaking by Robert Zemeckis.