The Way Back
This one was kind of frustrating. It had all the goods to be an absolute knock-out of a movie: great cast doing great things, intriguing story, a capable director... and yet... somehow, it came up short of awesome. I'm not saying it was bad... but not great... not as great, anyway, as it could have been. And I'm having a tough time putting my finger on what exactly went wrong. And how wrong did it go?
What didn't go wrong was the story. Good stuff usually. A group composed of mixed nationalities (but led by the eternally optimistic and determined Pol, Janusz- Jim Sturgess giving it his all and doing some fine work) escapes from a Soviet prison camp (in Siberia) and flees to India... on foot. Typically stirring stuff here- the triumph of the human will and all that jazz. Nothing wrong with the story. Or the cast- which gave great performances all the way around. I already mentioned (in passing parenthetical) that Jim Sturgess brought his A game to great effect. Colin Ferrell was delightfully just unhinged enough as the Russian criminal who escapes prison to flee the gambling debt he wracked up in the camp. Ed Harris brought a great deal of stoicism and just the right touch of humanity to his part of the tough old American. And Saoirse Ronan, playing an escaped Polish orphan, again offered a glimpse of the fantastic actress she's becoming. She's not quite to the point of amazing yet- but she's getting there, and here she was able to both hijack a number of her scenes and keep the movie going at points where it bogged down. Oh and I have to give a shout out to Mark Strong, the every villain. Here he's not so much evil as he is a garden variety scoundrel.. if that. Don't want to ruin it, but he's definitely not heroic...again. I don't recall, however, ever seeing him play the good guy. Kind of makes you wonder if he's a horrible person away from the set. Or, is he a super nice guy tapping in to his inner bad dude...over and over again. There really wasn't anything wrong with his performance (though I think his accent was the least polished) just kind of amusing.
So yeah, nothing wrong with the acting... in fact for a lot of the movie it's the great performances, particularly Harris, Ronan, and the mesmerizing Sturgess that keep you engaged in the movie. But then, why would you want to look away from the movie? It has the goods right? I think, despite the fact that the story in and of itself is intriguing, the way Peter Weir tells it..or lets it unravel.. is..well...lacking. Again, it's hard to pinpoint what exactly was lacking...but it was missing something...or some things. I guess one issue was the pacing of the movie. It definitely lacked a consistent pace. At times, it just seemed to get bogged down in details... it just stalled. And at other times, it just jumped around abruptly-an issue that was definitely on display with the ending. Actually the ending offered a worst of both worlds in terms of the pace. The movie just kind of coasted to the end and then all of the sudden- credits. Well, not that abrupt. There is definitely closure. But, you went from the meat of the story to the finish so.... and I know this is going to sound odd... deliberately and suddenly. Let's see how to put it better... you just kind of coasted to the end...without really knowing it was the end (other than knowing that the thing was a shade over 2 hours and a vague sense that the timer should be up)...and buy the time you realized it was the end, he credits are rolling. Look not ruin anything but a group of the guys get to India. And it's like all of a sudden there they are. No build up to it. It was odd.
I don't know... maybe the abrupt ending speaks to what might have been the core of what was missing about this movie. Heart? An emotional attachment? Yeah, maybe the latter. Everything in how the story was told and presented just seemed a little detached. It's almost like the audience is never given the chance... or is expected to really engage the characters on the screen. Rather than experiencing the story on a deeper level you're kind of left just watching this mixed bag of folks taking a walk. You see the triumph of the human spirit and will to live. Good, but ordinary people, becoming extraordinary if for no other reason than to take another step (of course you see it; it's hard not to this will to go on and what it means to these people is consistently plastered all over Sturgess's face). But somehow you don't feel it. You get close to attachment in some of the scenes presided over by Ronan. And maybe that was her role her- to make these people more human. I don't know. But again, this feeling was- for me- fleeting and inconsistent. And maybe because of this detachment (and I'm not saying that all movies HAVE to grab you- really grab you- to be great... but it helps) there seems to be a lack of substance behind the story. What does this all matter? It's hard to say. It really just devolves into a group of people taking a long, arduous walk. For what? Freedom, of course. But what does that mean? Weir starts trying to show you what freedom means to these guys, but he never quite gets there. And its frustrating. You know it's important... it has to be. I don't know. It's definitely a movie that tries to show that it's not the destination that's important but the journey, but you never get a real great sense of what that journey is...other than the physical Siberia to India footpath express.
Again, I'm not saying that all of this lack of attachment (for lack of a better way of putting it) sinks the movie entirely. It's just frustrating and makes it difficult to express how exactly this one falls short. And in that I mean falls short of greatness. Not goodness. It's a pretty good movie on the whole. It just should have been better.
Grade: B+
No comments:
Post a Comment