I quite enjoyed Cast Away. If I came across it on DVD, I would add it to my entertainment library.

It's a work of fiction of course; the goal is entertainment not instruction. But with that in mind, they made a decent effort to deal with some of the basic issues. The physical issues -- food and water, tools, shelter, injury and illness.

And the psychological issues -- grief, isolation, regret, despair ... but also the mental means of taking some personal control of a difficult situation. Okay, Wilson went over the top; but he/it still had some merit.

And at the end, the hero didn't get the girl. Life, and people, kept moving forward. It was an honest ending, and I sincerely appreciated that.