Features > Movie Reviews > The Way Back…

We don’t do well in the snow in England. Arterial transport clogs, deliveries pile up, and many of us worry about frostbite and hypothermia and begin composing Captain Oates speeches after only half an hour building a snowman.

When the mercury slides below zero for more than a day, conditions are ‘Arctic’. When we need a level of frigidity beyond even that of the polar ice cap, it’s called ‘Siberian’.  And, if Peter Weir’s The Way Back is anything to go by, it’s a good job most of us will never have to experience a genuine Siberian winter.

We would not do well. Even with the quiet, determined leadership of Janusz (Jim Sturgess) or the wild-eyed impetus of rabid Russian Valka (Colin Farrell), we probably wouldn’t even make it under the fence of a gulag labour camp, high in 1940s Siberia.

But for Janusz, a young Polish man imprisoned by Stalin’s regime as WWII ramps up, it’s do or die. His outdoorsy skills attract a small, volatile band of fugitives, including Valka and a steely American called Mr Smith (Ed Harris).

The first bit is the easy bit. They escape the guns and guards and dogs of the gulag, straight into the iron claw of Siberia’s winter wilderness. Freedom lies that-a-way. About 4,000 miles that-a-way. On foot.

It’s a monumental prospect, it steals courage from the souls of the bravest and toughest, and it runs the most extreme gamut of exposure and hardship en route. And it’s probably mostly true.

Based on Slavomir Rawicz’s memoir, The Long Walk (first published in 1956), it’s since been proved that Rawicz didn’t himself attempt this mind-boggling journey, but it’s very likely the story of Witold Glinski, who did.

Either way, this is compelling, finger-freezing, feet-blistering, back-breaking viewing. But not bum-numbing. Weir (Master and Commander, The Truman Show, Dead Poets Society) keeps the runtime down to a respectable 130 minutes, while still conveying the vast scope of this undertaking. And he really puts his cast through it.

Sturgess is excellent as the quiet, unquenchable heart of this tale, and well supported by Farrell’s fire, Harris’s gravitas, and Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones) – impressive as a frightened girl whose path crosses with the escapees.

And they all toil in a wild range of conditions that pander not at all to comfort, fragility or actorly pretension. Sturgess is from Surrey, incidentally, so maybe a modern-day Englishman can do well in sub-zero temperatures after all.

Look back through Weir’s catalogue and you’ll find films with a bold seam running through them of the search for freedom and the indomitable human spirit. The Way Back is very much powered by this theme too.

First and foremost though, this is brutal adventure; an absorbing, thrilling odyssey in the face of overpowering obstacle and adversity. It’s the sort of epic journey that begs for the big screen and our attention, and it very much deserves both.