Four years after the critical and financial success of CAST AWAY, Zemeckis fully leaned into his obsession with technology and the possibilities it may hold. To this day, many still dismiss Zemeckis' exploration of the dreaded uncanny valley, and if you can suspend your disbelief enough in the literal face of these wildly animated and fittingly surreal creations, we're confident you'll find a honest to goodness Zemeckis film full of all his idiosyncrasies and obsessions. THE POLAR EXPRESS is a film about not believing in something that everyone around you adamantly says is reality - in this case, the ability to believe in and hear the magical bells of one St. Nick. Our protagonist is swept away from his Michigan home on a train ride straight to the North Pole. On that ride we meet one of what will be many incarnations of Tom Hanks, along with the very welcome return of Eddie Deezen to the world of Zemeckis. Ultimately arriving at the elves' workshop (modeled off Chicago’s own Pullman Factory on the South Side), the boy and his friends end up running the yuletide playland, in the hopes that can confront the big jolly man himself. In what could be seen as an odd spiritual sibling to CAST AWAY, or an updated remake of I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND, THE POLAR EXPRESS ultimately delivers a message of twinkling melancholy, as the boy who can now finally hear the bell must return to a world where everyone he knows and loves will lose that ability as they age. The boy is once again in one of Zemeckis' most frequented spots - a place of immense and isolating loneliness, where the truth or joy you’ve discovered belongs to you, and you alone.