I don't know how I feel about this movie; it's certainly disturbing material. And I guess that's a testament to its realism: it's more like you're witnessing horrors than watching a movie; I couldn't distant myself. Apparently, Zemeckis wanted all of Chuck's leaps of intuition to ring true with the audience; he didn't want to leave them behind or have them questioning the logic of any moment. Speaking for myself, as I'm known to do, :-P Zemeckis et al. passed with flying colours.
Note: spoilers follow...
One of the premises that seems to hound a lot of movies is the idea that everything has to be explained to the audience as it occurs. It bugs the heck outta me because: 1) it's so prevalent, and 2) it presupposes we're all idiots. This movie is a perfect example of how the premise is not only incorrect, but also deprives the director of some great storytelling devices.
The biggest example is the plane crash: what happened? Why did the plane depressurize? Well, we find out, but only in the last half hour of the movie. So many movies would've cut to the flammable package in the back while Chuck was in the washroom; so many! You know it! It builds suspense, right? Wrong! It takes the audience out of the moment. Chuck is none the wiser, so neither are we in Zemeckis' vision; beautiful.
Another great example is Chuck's suicide attempt. I had no idea what he was talking about with Wilson, the volleyball; probably because it wasn't really a conversation, but, again, it didn't matter. It makes for an incredibly powerful scene near the end as Chuck recounts the event and his emotions at the time. An incredible device, made possible by shuffling the sequence of events and leaving the audience guessing for a bit.
