It’s been 25 years since its release, but the 2000 film Cast Away is still named as one of the most well-loved movies starring actor Tom Hanks, who by far had the most screentime.
Hanks plays Chuck Noland, a systems analyst for FedEx who travels the world on the company’s cargo planes to help resolve productivity problems.
However, during a stormy flight, the plane crashes in the middle of the Pacific Ocean – leaving Chuck to wake up alone on a deserted island.
The movie then follows Chuck as he navigates the island, trying his best to survive. He also opens up several FedEx parcels that ended up on the island with him to see if any of them included things that could help him. Their contents include a Wilson volleyball, which becomes his companion during the years he spend alone on the island.
After four years, Chuck manages to escape the island by building a raft, which helps him be rescued by a cargo ship. However, as he returned to his life in Memphis, Tennesee, he learns that everyone in his life had moved on without him.
The movie is still praised as one of the greats, with an approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes of 88% based on 156 reviews and an average rating of 7.4/10.
However, even though it’s been a quarter of a century since the film first came out, people have just realised that the titles holds a double meaning.
Taking to Reddit’s ‘MovieDetails’ forum, one user explained: “For the movie Cast Away, the title is split into two words, meaning “thrown out” or “abandoned” rather than castaway as one word, meaning lost at sea.”
This wasn’t the only thing with multiple meanings, as another person also took to the comment section of the post to point out: “The main character’s name is Chuck Noland. As in thrown to no land.”
Others went on to show different meanings of the name, depending on how you say it out loud.
“C. Noland. See no land,” one person wrote, while another also pointed out it could be pronounced as “Sea. No land,” referring to how the character could only see the sea and no other land.
When Chuck later comes home, he soon learn that he’s been ‘cast away’ with people in his life all moving on without him.
People were amazed to learn about the multiple meanings of the name, as they’d never thought twice about the spelling.
“Honestly never caught this,” one person shared, while another said: “That’s something I think people are aware of but it’s nice to see it written down. Like a lot of grammar rules.”
“Well, that only works for english. In portuguese, they translated the title to NAUFRAGO,” a third person said, which means ‘Shipwreck’.