Dialogue of the day from Cast Away, ‘Tomorrow the sun will rise...’

Dialogue of the Day: Chuck is sitting with Stan in Memphis with a drink in his hand. He has done what nobody expected and gotten back, but the woman he came back for has built a new life. He has just lost Kelly a second time. Stan asks him how he is going to cope, and Chuck gives an answer that has nothing to do with being strong.

Dialogue of the Day

“I know what I have to do now. I’ve got to keep breathing, because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?” - Chuck Noland, Cast Away

What does the dialogue mean?

On the island, Chuck survived by finding the smallest reason to keep going. This line is the same instinct, brought home. He cannot fix what has happened and he cannot make Kelly his again. What he can do is keep breathing and stay open to whatever arrives next.

The sun and the tide are chosen carefully. Both are things nobody controls, and both keep coming back. He is not claiming that his luck will turn or that things will be fine. He is saying the future is unknown, and that an unknown future is not the same thing as a bad one.

That is what makes the line feel honest. He is still sad, and he says so. He tells Stan that he is grateful Kelly was with him on the island and that he is sad to have lost her again. The hope comes without pretending the loss did not happen.

It helps anyone who feels stuck in the middle of something hard. You do not have to know what happens next, or feel better today. You only have to keep going long enough for tomorrow to arrive. The sun does not need your permission.

About Cast Away

Released in 2000 and directed by Robert Zemeckis, Cast Away follows Chuck Noland, a FedEx systems engineer whose plane crashes in the Pacific and leaves him stranded on a deserted island for four years. Tom Hanks plays Chuck and Helen Hunt plays Kelly, with the screenplay by William Broyles Jr. The film is remembered for Hanks’s mostly solo performance and for its quiet final act, which shows that coming home can be just as hard as surviving.