The Way Back
A curiously pedestrian adaptation of such an epic human endeavour.
Plot summary
Under cover of a night time blizzard, seven prisoners caught up in Stalin’s Reign of Terror escape a Soviet Gulag prison in 1940. They are now free men and almost certainly dead men, for their impending trek to safety defies any reasonable chance of success and the landscape they must cross is unforgiving. With little food or equipment, and no certainty of their location or intended direction, they embark on a journey that will present unimaginable hardship.
It’s been seven long years since acclaimed Australian director Peter Weir’s (Gallipoli, The Truman Show) last cinematic outing – 2003’s Master and Commander – but The Way Back finds him again exploring a similar Boys’ Own yarn of an adventure. Based on a true story, it recounts the extraordinary escape from a Russian gulag by a group of men in 1940. Extraordinary because they managed to escape the camp and subsequently survived the Siberian wilderness and trekked a staggering 4,000 miles – crossing the Himalayas to reach India for their eventual freedom. To put that in perspective, that’s like walking from Land’s End to John O’Groats and back again… in some of the worst weather conditions the planet can muster.
The audience is presented with these facts at the very beginning of the film, so revealing them here is no plot spoiler, but by telling us that three men reach India, the audience might find themselves – not wondering what might happen – but merely which three will eventually be successful and how the others might be lost along the way.
Young Brit actor Jim Sturgess plays Janusz, a Polish cavalry officer accused of being an enemy of the state when Russia invades Poland before World War II. He finds himself sent to a Siberian prison camp, and, realising that most inmates perish within months from the hard labour, he immediately sets about plotting his escape. When he finally breaks through the wires, he takes with him seven others, including the volatile Russian gangster Valka (Colin Farrell) and American Mr Smith (Ed Harris). They first have to endure the freezing forests of Siberia, where they pick up a Polish refugee, Irena (Saoirse Ronan) – an enigmatic young woman desperate to escape Russia, and whose presence divides the group. After Siberia, they reach Mongolia, and tundra then gives way to the arid, unforgiving Gobi desert – a climate for which they are hopelessly ill-equipped.
The group’s plight is moving, and their feat remarkable, so it’s a shame that The Way Back inspires admiration but never quite draws you to the edge of your seat. This is a tale of survival against the elements, there’s little explosive drama.
Surprisingly, despite the stunning vistas on offer, the cinematography lacks the ‘wow’ factor. As the lead, Sturgess just about carries the plot, but does not here make for the most arresting or charismatic screen presence. Ed Harris provides suitable gravitas as the older Mr Smith, while Ronan offers a subtle turn as the coquettish Irena. Colin Farrell sports some nice Russian-looking tattoos and scars, but his character fails to ignite the plot in the way that the audience might anticipate.
The Way Back is not a bad film, but it’s a curiously pedestrian adaptation of such an epic human endeavour; one that will sit equally at home on the TV screen as it does in the cinema.
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