Based on Piers Paul Read's 1974 bestseller, Alive , the movie doesn't shy away from the cannibalism that kept the surviving college rugby players from succumbing to the elements. The movie becomes an ensemble piece in which heroes and leaders take a while to emerge in this communelike group, and even they are always in danger.
Death is an ever-present possibility.
Alive is even less of a star vehicle than Ethan Hawke's last movie about snowy survival, A Midnight Clear , although as his character, Nando Parrado, gains physical strength and moral purpose, Hawke eventually becomes the focus of John Patrick Shanley's screenplay. But Shanley brings out a metaphysical dimension that gives Alive its own resonance. The result is a much more hopeful movie than Ric Burns' recent documentary, The Donner Party , which told a similar horror story about starvation, murder and cannibalism in the American West of the 19th century. Partly this is because the historical facts are less depressing, but it's also because Marshall, Stanley and their cast have found a way to tell this story that makes the choice of a hymn at the finale seem appropriate. For more information, click here .