Isolation
I Am Legend is about a man surviving in New York City alone. Robert Neville hasn’t seen another uninfected human being in three years. We see that he has set up a daily routine with workouts, experiments, clearing buildings for supplies, and a trip to the DVD store where he is watching films (in alphabetical order) to keep his mind focused, and on track. Despite this routine, we see that his lack of human contact has taken it’s toll. He has named mannequins at the DVD store, speaking to them as old friends and even new love interests. When one of his mannequins winds up in a different part of town, Robert experiences a break in his ability to reason.
Isolation has a profound affect on the human psyche. Our ability to connect with each other is a major reason we are able to endure the hardships of life. Robert’s daily routine and his companion, Sam, his German Shepherd play a pivotal role in him not breaking completely apart. When Sam is killed Robert has lost his only friend as well as his connection to his wife and daughter. With this, Robert is ready to die. His logic leaves, as he attempts to face the infected on the Seaport at night. He knows he will be outnumbered, and this is where isolation plays it’s duel trick in that it has deformed Robert’s reason, and at the same time caused his heart to break because of his inability to connect with anyone.
Faith
We see posters early on with the Creation of Adam painting distorted to show God’s hand reaching towards mans, but man has a gun in his hand. Is God punishing us, or are we punishing Him? It’s a big question I believe this film asks. Robert Neville has stopped believing in God, but continues to have faith that he will find the cure for this virus. His faith in the cure is what drives him each and every day to do what is necessary to survive. Faith is what we hope for put into action day after day.
This brings us to another large question, is our faith in a singular aim enough without our faith in God? Anna arrives with Ethan as catalysts into this question. If Robert finds the cure without Anna and Ethan, what would he do, where would he go? Yes, he would begin to cure the infected in New York, but how long would that take, would there be a bigger, long-term plan? Anna believes the long term plan lies at the survivor’s colony in Vermont, a place she has not seen, nor heard about, but that has been revealed to her as real by God. Does faith in a definite aim matter? Yes. Does faith in God matter? Yes. Does not having faith of any sort matter? Yes. Faith is a force created when we partner our abilities with a belief in what is unseen, and move every single day, one step closer to where we are heading.
Nature and Capitalism
We see New York City in this film in a way that we, in our lifetime, may never see. It has been reverted back to a primitive state amongst all of the vast buildings and advertisements of Times Square, all built by capitalism. We see a deer killed by a lion just before Robert is able to himself shoot the deer for food. The lions don’t attack Robert, maybe because he is doing exactly what they have always done, survive. In an era when the rich build monuments of concrete and steel, to see it all mean nothing in this film is a reason for pause.
Capitalism has advanced our world in ways that afford us great luxuries. This film explores, very subtly, a question many people may not ask after seeing it, “Was the virus created to save lives, or as a revenue stream?” Were enough clinical trials conducted over a long enough period of time in order to know that the virus was safe for mass distribution? Was it rushed into the marketplace to capitalize on pharmaceutical companies making major money? We don’t get answers in the form of the history of the drug, but it’s clear that the world has suffered greatly. So, then because of a misstep, whether morally or genetically, our capitalistic society is quite literally being reclaimed by nature, with wild beasts roaming the streets devouring anything they can kill to survive.
One last observation on this theme is when Robert is searching for Sam in the darkness of the building he comes across a group of infected. As he backs out, he steps over literally bundles of money scattered on the floor. It’s important to note that when our lives are on the line, we aren’t thinking of money, we want to live, and when there is no society left to spend the money; it's discarded and useless.
