Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
1/22/11
Veteran
watchers of the upcoming movie release schedule develop a sixth sense for
a certain kind of “uh-oh” movie, one whose elements are so much better
than its position on the release schedule that it can only mean the film's
commercial prospects have been all but abandoned. Case in point:
Peter Weir directs his first movie in seven years, an epic survival tale
set against the backdrop of WWII-era Russia, with a cast full of award
magnet performers like Ed Harris, Saoirse Ronan and Colin Farrell.
And The Way Back is opening on roughly 650 screens in mid-January,
distributed by Newmarket Films, the former Passion of the Christ
distributer recently revived as the art house subsidiary of Lionsgate.
The finished product could be much worse given that build-up, but it's
clear why no one believed this movie would draw the attention of either
moviegoers or award-granting critics groups. It has strong elements:
the above-referenced actors are all in fine form, and Russell Boyd's cinematography
is suitably stunning. But this is far from what we've come to expect
from six-time Oscar nominee Weir: instead, it's the epitome of “good”
while never even scratching greatness. I was mostly engaged by The
Way Back, although I did let loose a yawn or five during its 135-minute
running time. Fans of the genre will enjoy a glance at a much-discussed
but rarely filmed part of history, and we really don't get to see enough
of Harris firing on all cylinders these days. If you've already seen
all the major awards contenders, The Way Back should tide you over.
After
the Russian invasion of Poland, Janusz (Jim Sturgess) is arrested after
his wife (Sally Edwards) is forced to implicate him for crimes he didn't
commit. The Russians love to invent excuses to imprison people in
their Siberian Gulags and Janusz quickly learns the key players:
everyone leaves a tough American known only as Mr. Smith (Ed Harris) alone;
Russian criminals like Valka (Colin Farrell) have the run of the prison,
and actor Khabarov (Mark Strong) is plotting an escape. When Janusz
and Smith are transferred to hazardous duty in a mine, the American decides
it's time to throw in with an escape plan, but not the one the delusional
actor has been hatching for years. Instead, they are joined by Valka,
fleeing from gambling debts, Priest Voss (Gustaf Skarsgard), cynical Zoran
(Dragos Bucur), sketch artist Tomasz (Alexandru Potocean) and young Kazik
(Sebastian Urzendowsky), who's suffering from malnutrition. Getting
out of the Gulag is simple, but as the warden made clear upon their arrival,
Siberia is the real prison. In the surrounding woods, they add another
person to their party, orphaned teen Irena (Saoirse Ronan). One by
one, brutal elements claim them as they fight starvation, insects, lack
of water, and extremes of cold and heat. As the opening titles informed
us, only three of them will reach safety 4,000 miles away in India.
The
Way Back is not a movie full of subplots, interpersonal conflict, richly
developed characters or narrative drive. It's a movie about seven
people who start a 4,000 mile walk in Russia and struggle to endure everything
nature can throw at them along the way. Luckily, Weir has assembled
a cast capable of making the characters seem deeper (which is to say deep
at all) than they are on the page. Harris is a real cinematic treasure,
and he's at his most granite-jawed intense here, allowing only a few moments
of genuine warmth with Ronan, who again proves herself to be as good a
teen actress as we've got. Farrell's reinvention as a character actor
serves him well in the movie's richest role, as the second-rate criminal
who proves to be a pretty handy guy to have around when you're trying to
survive at any cost. Sturgess is an effective moral center around
whom they all gravitate. Skarsgard and Potocean solidly work their
single notes of guilt-ridden and affable, and Strong makes the most of
his few scenes (I suspect there's a longer cut sitting around somewhere
that spends more time in the Gulag, although I've really no desire to see
it) as an actor paying the price for the worst review imaginable.
While
it's true that escaped prisoners from a very fatalistic part of the world/period
in history would probably not open up all that much about themselves, that's
no reason why The Way Back should tell US so little about its characters.
I did like the way the only reason they open up at all is because there's
a girl in their midst, one who then travels back and forth through their
marching line passing around what gossip there is to report. That,
like the comic level of pragmatism that has Valka sizing all his fellow
escapees up for their nutritional value after death, is a rare oasis of
characterization in what otherwise is primarily a pure cinematic spectacle.
And
while the logistics of Weir and Keith R. Clarke's screenplay are impressive,
the director doesn't immerse us in his characters' plight the way he did
so successfully in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
I never FELT the freezing cold or the searing heat or those pesky mosquitoes
so much as I simply took note of them. The actors certainly suffer
convincingly, but from a distance that makes the viewer more interested
in their fate than bound to it in any pressing way. The scenes where
certain characters face the inevitability of their demise are rendered
with tremendous poetry, and are among the fleeting times when we're aware
that a truly great director is calling the shots. On the other hand,
I will do him the favor of assuming the Polish Film Council, credited over
and over with financial assistance, insisted on the almost embarrassingly
bad “walk through history” that bridges the end of the narrative proper
and a brief (and poorly staged) 1989 coda.
The
Way Back wouldn't be such a shame if Weir (who also brought us Witness
and The Truman Show among other classics) worked more often, but
it marks just his third film in the last seventeen years. So, while
it doesn't challenge Green Card for the title of his worst movie,
it makes for a long wait before his next great one. Of course, a
peak at the release schedule should have told you that. |
