Ruby Wax: Cast Away

Personally, i don't mind watching spoilt americans &or celebrities or other fish-out-of-water suffer in the wild, and by that i mean in a sense of truly enjoying their suffering, while so many human or otherwise suffer far greater their whole lives, in whichever form of justice or at least exposure, to suffering, that they less-frequently than in pranks or similar, choose to go through.

When one does, they do deserve a degree of respect, but this one (docco of that) really had nothing new, the lead-in with what's her name from Ab Fab was a nice touch / seemed appropriate, and some of the photography / choice of shots during that lead well towards the inevitable disaster / cock-up of the attempt when those of us waiting for the bad hair day, itching, and everything else, eagerly anticipated,..

* *evil mastermind arch-fingers twiddle* *

... so there was always going to be a very low maximum star rating for this, but the lead in added an early sense to be fair, that Ruby was truly trying to get more of a sense than she at least dramatized as-though she had not already got in warning without specifics, from everyone ELSE, she had been talking to.

The degree of truth in how much she anticipated things LIKE what err... whats-ner-name showed her, doesn't matter, in terms of the self-exposure of one's vulnerability, and I counted 4 times in the docco where she said something truly humble / respectful without pretension or human-values/patronising BS about nature or human limitations or something similar, that's not much,.. 4,.. but it's also not nothing, so OK, 2 stars,.. she/the production got another, for the choice to leave in a lot of self-criticism / admission of incapacity,.. and perhaps that deserved more than one, but that was not why i watched, and smiled, as she freaked out by the noises at night, and sometimes the little things, like the supposed "logs" falling on her presumably hypersensitive-skull head from all the med.s she was on - looking at the left hand side of the screen, you could SEE that they were barely 1/2 an inch / 1&1/2cm?

Sorry Ruby, but MOST of your little adventure here, was like that. Do you know what a log ACTUALLY is? Those round cylinder shaped things in fires BEFORE they're split into pieces? THAT THICK?

Ugh... so no... there was going to be a very low ceiling for the number of stars, and i didn't even bother to count the number of times something shallow, self-focused/attention-getting, overly-weighted in terms of over-valuing her own experience rather than the experience of others while remembering her reasons for things or moments of thoughts that i really was NOT interested in at all, and did not want to be distracted BY,.. in talk talk talk,.. when i wanted to see her or anyone like her really,.. SQUIRM,.. so i had to turn a lot of it off. If I had counted? It could've been in the hundreds,

so yeah, for me, it was definitely always going to be a low ceiling, compared to Bear Gryls drinking a few gulps of camel-pat liquid when he was over in west africa, Morroco? Somewhere.

Paaaaathetic, Ruby, as should've been expected.

No judgement on how tough one was or was not raised, or given positive encouragement rather than negative-reinforcement, when it comes to taking risks,.. no judgement at all,.. but seriously, what did you expect?

In that sense, the docco also had a degree of false-production pretense, in terms of what you would do if you were genuinely planning to try to survive for 10 days,.. so this did reek of a reality-TV like false-preparation,.. just for the sake of the drama.

So IMO, do NOT watch this, if you are wanting to see someone genuinely try to survive,.. if you want to watch someone IMO planning to HAVE-A-DRAMA ... as-though trying to survive,.. then sure, it might be for you.

For those of us who enjoy the degree of hopefully genuinely unexpected BODILY discomfort, suffering, and compulsion,.. in this case she didn't even make it through the 2nd day,..

... then there is something here, to boost your confidence &or reinforce what you know, about degrees of flexibility amongst those not used to living it rough, compared to some who do have true flexibility or adaptability.

The shot where she shows us her med.s is revealing too, and there are a fair degree of showing the public at least by contrast, WHY, this kind of docco maker is the way they are,.. to be fair in terms of sympathy for whatever sheltered &or oppressive upbringing one had, that did not encourage exploration/risk-taking to've hardened one up long ago,..

... but the limits on some's patience / tolerance of that, varies, so this film might not even raise a smile, if things like the terror of the night freaking out spoilt americans / celebrities,.. is not your thing.

Similarly if fake 'survival' TV shows are a pet hate?

Then this might have something more directly, personally, contrastable & real,..

... but as i inferred, perhaps only in the moments where she is giving REAL REASONS,.. such as when she shows us her med.s bag.

Fair enough,.. a star for that honesty, especially if it's the only truly real-reason for anything in the docco,.. at ALL.

Personally i DO think this was just another having-a-drama & acting surprised,..

... but watching her skin crawl, or when she was talking about her taking a shit 'experience' without a toilet, while a single low to the ground leaf-stem wobbled sideways a bit, in almost disdainful? Recognition that this human was NOT familiar, with taking a dump in the wild,.. a almost dismissive? Chance of this human continuing to contribute to the forest / perhaps even leave their body there in long-term-sight or long-term tongue you might say ... were worth it on it's own.

Did it wobble up & down, eagerly? No. A little UNimpressed waggle from left to right,.. while all the other trees around her kept paying attention to the weather, as she said at one point,.. not really CARING about her discomfort / gripes / grumbles.

So yeah, to summarize,.. sure,.. moments of honestly,.. but AMONGST a attention-getting celeb, acting surprised,.. OMG ... sigh ...

... no different in premise, than anything reality-TV fake, just-as-much.

I have not seen the whatserhername,.. Johanna something?.. Patsy from Ab Fab,.. docco,.. but i imagine she did not have all the STARTING EQUIPMENT, nor a survivalist giving her tips and procedures, before she started, like in this one?

So yeah, at the end of it, i hated spoilt celebrities no-LESS,.. and felt somewhat like the leaf trying to indicate whatever subtelty i think it was,.. a slow, shaking of the head, when bone & sinew can at times, move in synchro with root & stem,.. UNimpressed, and with no doubt about how LONG this visitor, would be entering into my home.

Waggle waggle,.. waving her away, with the gentlest of breezes,.. in KNOWING, that this wasn't going to work.

What you'd expect,.. so perhaps i could've given it 3 stars, but personally the choice to expose your own weakness, does deserve a recognition of a degree of courage compared to other docco makers who talk-shit long-after their pride takes over, such as Steve Bracknell with the ongoing 'sharks don't attack people' dishonor.

Contrarily, there is a degree of simple showing people your true weaknesses,.. AMONGST the still false-face, or partially-fake self-presentation / presentation of self, and that does deserve a star or two.

Nice try Ruby, but perhaps you should've tried it stage-by-stage , step-by-step,.. mmm... going for a funds-raising walk in those south-american rubber suits with the nipple hole / access-cut-out bits, in a foggy/chilling part of the UK, where there's many aged-care centers where old fellas might've been keen to put in a 5-10-20 pound note, to see a flame from their youth, expose her weakness/vulnerabilities, at a local level?

And then i dunno,.. step it up,.. participating in a near-zero-celcius degrees water dip,.. attending a overnight star-gazing or eclipse event with a selfie stick and thermos,..

stepping it up again,.. pffff i dunno,.. camping in the cold / wet,.. withOUT being cut off from civ?

Camping out of civ,.. but-not somewhere where you were going to get cold/wet?

I dunno,.. but going straight from comfortable lifestyle,.. to supposedly 'un'expected difficulties, just did not ring true,.. ofc you knew that it was going to be a failure,.. so what was the point?

Tshhh. Mostly enjoyed the terror / fish out of water,.. 1 star, apart from that,.. for the exposing-weakness honesty,.. so yeah. Probably-not what you were wanting, but what should you EXPECT, for fish out of water themed / purposed doccos?

Nothing but 'equal' degrees of recognition of courage?

The courage to have a whinge / have a drama,..

...is NOT,.. what Bear Gryls has.

This would presumably be true to a similar or perhaps a little less of a degree, with the Patsy/whatshername docco, if that was just-as-contrived.

Dunno,.. but a 'reality'-TV version?

A imitation? Of the real thing?

SHOULD get you degrees of criticism, sorry.

Thanks for the honest-exposure of weakness/incapacity though,.. THAT PART, was truly human / respectably-true.