Not to be Taken Too Literally

Rating: 9/10 (7 May 2011)

It is pointless to review this film as if it were a typical adventure-drama. For Weir, essence is what matters.
In The Way Back, Weir very deliberately pulls back from his characters and the detail of their story. That's not a flaw - it's a tip-off. This is NOT a narrative about four men who endure hell to escape from the gulag. It's a meditation on Endurance itself.
Weir does confuse the issue a bit, with a surprisingly literal montage sequence at the end. Perhaps he felt a concrete pay-off was needed, a decades-later denouement. But those few closing images are not really a part of the journey - merely a suggestion that it does have an ending.
As long as you remain focused on the journey itself, it all makes perfect sense. And it's all hauntingly beautiful. There are no tragedies along the way - merely people who finish their own journey a little sooner, or who turn off in a different direction. There are moments of wry humor, and deep emotion. And a quietly growing bond between men who have nothing in common but the journey, and their individual capacity to endure it.
Could a group of men actually survive a trek such as the one suggested in this film? If you're still asking that question, you definitely saw the wrong movie.