10 Movies Only Directed As Experiments

9. A Near-Wordless Movie Adapted From A Letter - All Is Lost

The Experiment

In 2011, up-and-coming filmmaker J. C. Chandor (Margin Call) wanted to test whether or not he could create a compelling film from a most simple cinematic hook: a written letter.

This eventually led to Chandor making All Is Lost, a minimalist, near-wordless survival drama following a man (Robert Redford, the film's single cast member) stranded at sea.

The film opens with Redford's protagonist reading aloud a letter which he writes in the event that he doesn't survive the ordeal, and this was also the first part of the movie that Chandor wrote.

Chandor's idea was to have this two-minute monologue lay the groundwork for a movie that otherwise features almost no words, and boldly, the film's final script ran just 31 pages.

As Chandor himself put it, "The letter came to me, then it was how do you take a character to a place in an interesting way to write a letter like that?"

How Did It Turn Out?

Terrifically. The film received near-universal critical acclaim for both Redford's performance and Chandor's direction, making the most of his resource-spare gimmick and proving that a film can be plenty compelling with little dialogue in earshot.