Telluride First Review: "The Way Back"

One film that we haven't heard much about until recently, though it's been buzzed plenty enough, is Peter Weir's The Way Back. The film covers the true story of soldiers (and others) who escaped from a Siberian gulag in the early 1940s. The film, which stars Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, Jim Sturgess, and Saoirse Ronan, has been talked about as a possible come-back project for Weir, and while this first review makes it sound like such a come-back, it sounds like it could be too intense to garner much awards traction.

Cinematical's Eugene Novikov writes that the film "enters the canon of survival films as perhaps the most sadistically intent on making you feel as much of its subjects' physical agony as possible." He also says that the first half is "Weir at his hypnotic best," but that it "makes for an intense, unpleasant experience." Novikov also writes that the second half loses some impact because it becomes "a series of obstacles and triumps...the moral ambiguity drains from the film."

Additional Reviews:

The Hollywood Reporter: "...a harrowing epic that will not be an easy sell, but it finds Weir again working at the top of his game."

Telluride Verdict: An intense film that doesn't sugar-coat the harshness of its story, and that, flaws and all, is a major new work from Peter Weir.