The Way Back Review

Rating: 7/10 (26 January 2011)

What makes a movie as interesting as the central plot, is the displayed characteristics of its actors in their performances. A Polish inmate, an American with a scarred past, a thief with violent tendencies, a teenage girl, an artist, a priest, and a supposed comedian all make their way from the Siberian imprisonment camp Gulag, across Lake Baikal, to the communist ruled Mongolia, and all their way to a communist free India. "The Way Back" emphasizes some of the political history of Joseph Stalin's reign of communism, which often included ethnic cleansing, suspicion of traitorous behavior, and more exclusion of potentially foreign threats. The Siberian work camp Gulag, was used to hold a variety of criminals. It goes from the rapists, to the killers, all the way to the political prisoners. Jim Sturgess plays the proclaimed leader of this band of escapees, a polish inmate, Janusz navigating through their whole journey, with little food, weakening strength, dying comrades, and an aspiring determination to return home to the very person who betrayed him. The film began with his wife giving in to the persuasive torture she was subjected to, signing a confession of her husband being a spy and opposing Stalin's communist views, thus sentencing him to twenty years of imprisonment. In his short time of unacceptable agony, Janusz meets the hard and noble Mr. Smith (Harris), the almost monstrously portrayed Valka (Farrell), and in the middle of their journey to freedom the sympathetic Irena (Ronan). Their Journey reveals more about themselves, than what they would've discovered in their incarceration. We all learn of Smith's guilt over his son's death being his life long burden at the cause of bringing him to Russia, Valka still seeing the tyrannical Stalin as a hero rather than a monster, and Janusz's reason for survival to reach freedom are for the purpose of forgiveness. Even after personally witnessing his wife's betrayal, he couldn't bring himself to hatred or contempt because he understood how she must've felt at that very shameful act, living with the heavy guilt of submission and betrayal. I'm not going to go out and say that this film is a classic, however, it displays very impressive performances from its cast, showing just how powerful they can make this story of survival, aside from the many brutal challenges they faced. Their encounters with sandstorms, dehydration, starvation, and temporary loss of hope at the hands of their failures, all of these factors contributed as major challenges to their character expression, pushing them to express more as they traveled together. The films conclusion ends in a brief montage of the rise of communism in Poland to its eventual fall in 1970. I just have to say that I really enjoyed this film, and how it can be really involve the viewer with the interaction of the characters, the hardships encountered, as well as the general tone of survival being used to show how hope can easily shrink, but how it can also push you beyond your limits. I was particularly amazed at the performance of Jim Sturgess, he displays his characters as a simple but very driven individual. He couldn't survive the ordeals of the camp, believing it would be easier to escape, when that journey pushed him and his remaining survivors to a severe test of survival motivated by an inspiration to simply stay alive. I also have to give credit to Ronan, and how as a young actress she is showing an intriguing development in her acting. I thought her performance in "The Lovely Bones" was well, despite the film's strange visuals. Director Peter Weir has brought audiences an interesting film of undying motivation to survive and carry on ones ambitions with a unique focus on it's characters, as much as the very torment they are subjected to. He focuses more on this sole point of interest, rather than the political issues that inspired this film and its characters.