the way back movie review ed harris

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The Way Back

2010, Drama, 2h 13m

What to know

Critics Consensus

It isn't as emotionally involving as it should be, but this Peter Weir epic offers sweeping ambition and strong performances to go with its grand visual spectacle. Read critic reviews

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The way back photos.

Denounced by his wife as a possible spy in 1939, Janusz (Jim Sturgess) finds himself in a remote Siberian labor camp. Faced with brutal conditions inside and out, Janusz is determined to escape. A blizzard provides him with the perfect opportunity, and he and a small group of fellow prisoners make a break for it. Escape, however, is the easy part, for Janusz and his companions face a 4,000 mile trek on foot through the frozen Himalayas before they can truly be free.

Rating: PG-13 (Brief Strong Language|A Nude Image|Depiction of Physical Hardship|Violent Content)

Genre: Drama

Original Language: English

Director: Peter Weir

Producer: Peter Weir , Joni Levin , Duncan Henderson , Nigel Sinclair

Writer: Peter Weir , Keith Clarke

Release Date (Theaters): Jan 21, 2011 limited

Release Date (Streaming): Oct 17, 2011

Box Office (Gross USA): $2.7M

Runtime: 2h 13m

Distributor: Newmarket Film Group

Production Co: Exclusive Films

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

Cast & Crew

Jim Sturgess

Colin Farrell

Saoirse Ronan

Mark Strong

Gustaf Skarsgård

Alexandru Potocean

Sebastian Urzendowsky

Stanislav Pishtalov

Zahary Baharov

Interrogator

Dragos Bucur

Screenwriter

Keith Clarke

Executive Producer

Simon Oakes

Tobin Armbrust

Jake Eberts

Ed Borgerding

Mohammed Khalaf

Adam Leipzig

Scott Rudin

Jonathan Schwartz

Duncan Henderson

Nigel Sinclair

Russell Boyd

Cinematographer

Film Editing

News & Interviews for The Way Back

O.J.: Made in America and Community Now Streaming on Hulu

Now Streaming: Captain America: The Winter Soldier , The Sacrament , and More

Critics Consensus: No Strings Attached Is A Little Frayed

Critic Reviews for The Way Back

Audience reviews for the way back.

Peter Weir is a fine filmmaker and he has crafted some truly terrific films. His work is truly engaging. He always manages to assemble great casts that feature prominently in his films. This is a strong effort with a great story and terrific talent involved. I much preferred this film over Master & Commander and it is a movie that is one of the finer directorial efforts from Weir. The cast make the material work well enough from start to finish. Based on true events, this film is a standout tale of survival in the harshest of times and can make it through with perseverance and determination. This is a great film from the first moment and if you love these types of movies, then give it a shot, you'll surely enjoy it. The Way Back is one of Peter Weir's strongest efforts and it is a movie that delivers some genuine tension and excitement. All of the cast members bring something unique to the screen, but it is Weir's eye to create a story worth telling that sets this picture apart from others in his filmography. I thoroughly enjoyed the film and if you love a good survival story, then this is the film to watch. Peter Weir has made some fine movies in the past, but The Way Back is a movie that is a brilliant return to form to what he used to do and he delivers something truly memorable and almost flawless in terms of storytelling. Weir is a fine filmmaker and with this film he proves that once again. With a great script and cast, Peter Weir was able to craft a movie that is thrilling from start to finish.

I can't tell if these people are trying to escape to freedom or trying to escape from their accents. Well, Ed Harris is American, and is stuck as one in this film, because most of us couldn't keep up a convincing accent to save our lives, yet the more distinctly accented people, however, can do any accent they please, and rarely let you forget that. Seriously, the Irish, in particular, often stay clear of staying home, even when they're patriotic, and here we are with, not one, but two self-respecting Irsh people, one of whom hasn't gone Irish for as long as we can remember (Well, there is "Ondine", so Colin Farrell has at least not done his natural accent in a film that people actually saw for as long as we can remember), with the other having not gone Irish, well, at all. Maybe Saoirse Ronan has more of a love-hate relationship with her culture than she lets on, and her little lashes at motherland Ireland include her continuation to change accents, as well as her going against Irish tradition and pronouncing her name Sir-sha and not the proper Seer-sha. Well, either she prefers to pronounce her name differently as a lash at Irish tradition, or because not even she could figure out how to pronounce her name, and when someone called her on it, she got embarassed and just made up the excuse that she prefers to pronounce her name differently. Wow, looking at the pronunciation of a name like Saoirse, as well as the pronunciation of other crazy Irish words, it seems as though the Irish are such big drinkers that they actually invented a language out of drunken slurs, and yet, even they've still got thickly accented natives who can break into other accents more easily than us Americans can. Well, to be fair, Farrell and Ronan are some pretty awesome and convincing performers, though not the only talents within this colorful cast, as this film very much reminds you, yet not exactly to where you're left forgetting the less rewarding aspects of Peter Weir's latest good but sadly held-back effort. As with just about every Peter Weir effort, this film often moves along slowly and quietly, limping along in a fashion that really doesn't dull things down terribly often, but slows the film down almost to a standstill when dullness does set in and knocks you clean out of the film, if not occasionally comes close to just plain knocking you out. This problem is of course exacerbated heavily by the fact that the story structure is looser than Paris Hilton's morals, boasting excessive nothingness, not in some spots, but throughout the film, thus leaving the sting of the film's slowness to strike the more deeply and pacing to dissipate, leaving you to feel every overdrawn minute in this film of limited plot. The 133-minute runtime sounds comfortable, given the subject matter, but really, Weir achieves such a length forcibly, composing the film with expendable material almost more than actual plot, perhaps as a strategy of fleshing out and meditating upon the characters and story, which is great and all, but doesn't quite work, as the film is just so slow and the nothingness is just so excessive that the attempts as meditation simply come out as much more detrimental to the story's engagement value than supplementary, which is especially bad when you consider that this story definately needs more kick in its execution. Truly, the film's story is indeed remarkable and worthy, yet rather risky, promising either unique sweep and depth in execution or a potentially problematical conventionalism in execution, and sadly, this film goes the latter route, structuring the story in a fashion that we've seen time and again in escape films of this type, and Peter Weir's direction could have transcended that, yet simply doesn't. There's just not quite enough punch in Weir's directorial execution, and that lack of oomph is of course intensified by the film's being just slow, padded and conventional, and what could have made for a remarkable cinematic triumph ultimately comes out to be too "Peter Weir" for its own good. In reference to this film, a criticising Roger Ebert proclaimed that "not every incredible story makes a compelling movie", and while I do won't go as far as to say that this film isn't compelling, I certainly agree with the consensus' statement that this film "isn't as emotionally involving as it should be", as it's lacking the sweep, intrige, entertainment value, originality, dynamicity and overall resonance that could have made it an extraordinary effort. As it stands, however, it's still a rewarding film, for although it fails to consistently capture your attention and certainly fails to fulfull its very promising potential, there's enough here to catch your investment, or at least your eyes. Russell Boyd's cinematography isn't especially stunning, though it is attractively well-lit and colored, with a moderate degree of broadness in scope to capture the environment and compliment the fine locations that give you a reasonably strong feel for the progression and grandness of the adventure upon which this film is centered. Still, it's not entirely like this film needs sweeping photography or dynamic locations to leave you feeling for the adventure to a certain extent, as the premise of the film, alone, is strong enough to earn your attention and investment, for although the structuring of the storyline is hardly inventive, with an execution that isn't terribly thrilling, the story is still fascinating by its own right and creates an immediate degree of intrigue, enhanced by what Peter Weir does do right. His storytelling plagued by limpness and more nothingness than exposition, Peter Weir moves this story along ever so slowly, but surely nonetheless, for although this film really does deserve a better director and writer, and would have been better for it, it would have very easily collapsed as underwhelming in the hands of a lesser filmmaker, and in the experienced hands of Weir, this film boasts commendable inspiration and ambition throughout, with moderate sweep and charm, broken up by moments of genuine effectiveness, whether it be intrigue, or entertainment, or even in emotional depth (There's a particularly emotional scene just before the 100-minute mark that pretty much broke my heart). The film is just too much of a mess, so Weir's inspired directorial aspects just barely raise the final product past underwhelming, yet gets it to genuinely either way, and does so with the help with a strong cast of talents, all of whom deliver, though not terribly impressively, as material is shockingly limited, yet not to the point of rendering our cast incapable of compelling by doing well what they do have to do. Jim Sturgess is engagingly inspired in his charismatic and sometimes even emotional portrayal of the young but, well, engagingly inspired Janusz Wieszczek character, and Ed Harris earns your investment in him as the competent and experienced trustworthy figure who still goes haunted by some uncertainties, as well as the demons that came with his gaining experience. As for our two Irish talents, Colin Farrell is charismatic and effective as the willing but somewhat uneasingly hardened Valka character, into whom Farrell almost transforms, partially through his nailing of a Russian accent and largely through his effortless emitting of an atmosphere so comfortably self-contradictory and fitting for the role that Farrell bonds with his character almost more than he bonds with himself as an actor, while the lovely (When she finally gets her hair out of that cloth) Saoirse Ronan's charming, rather layered and occasionally even subtly poignant portrayal of someone as innocent yet still somewhat mysterious, uncertain and haunted as the too-young-for-these-struggles Irena character practically steals the show (What, Saoirse Ronan stealing the show, even with limited material to work with? That's unheard of!). Individually, each performer is distinctly charismatic and with the occasional high point in more advanced acting, and together, the cast boasts glowing chemistry and a sense of layered comradery that brings the character aspects to this character study to life, and with the fine style and general inspiration behind Peter Weir's direction further breathing life into the story execution, what we're ultimately left with is potential still squandered, yet backed up enough with strong moves that are very strong for the final product to ultimately triumph as an ultimately rewarding watch. To bring things "back" around, the film definately proves itself worthy of keeping its source material's original title of "The Long Walk", as it finds itself overdrawn with excessive nothingness and expendable material, made all the more pronounced by pacelessness and consistently slow quietness that renders the film rather dull, if not momentarily disengaging, while a lack of originality in Peter Weir's and Keith Clarke's screenplay, as well as limited bite in Weir's storytelling, leaves the high potential of this story to go rather unfulfilled, though not to the point of leaving the film underwhelming, as its story is so very strongly interesting, with immediate intrigue enhanced by handsome and somtimes sweeping photography and locations, as well as by genuinely affecting moments in Weir's direction to break up consistent charm and inspiration, made all the stronger by the chemistry and myriad of memorable, charismatic and occasionally even deep performances within the colorful cast, thus leaving "The Way Back" to power on as an enjoyable, compelling and ultimately worthwhile watch, even if it isn't as worthwhile as should be. 3/5 - Good

A group of refugees walk from Siberia to India. If only the beginning title cards didn't give away the end of the film, I might have thought it more suspenseful and compelling. As it is, I could guess the ending easily, and the film lost its luster for me. Additionally, it is affected by <i>Lord of the Rings</i> syndrome: the mistaken belief that beautiful shots of people walking makes for compelling cinema. Peter Weir, whose films all include the plights of common people against repressive politics, should have taken some notes from Danny Boyle, whose <i>127 Hours</i> made a guy stuck under a rock more compelling than this peripatetic film. But if you look at a map and trace the incredible distance these people traveled, you can understand why the story is so incredible. The characters are certainly courageous and admirable, and the performances by the cast - even by the insufferable Colin Farrell - are all up to par. Overall, it's a compelling idea with compelling characters, but the film lacks a stylistic flair to keep it interesting.

The (still contentious) real events behind the story of the film, where a group of escapees from a Siberian gulag travel by foot across vast distances to India, are incredibly inspiring, and this motivation pushes the collective involved in this film to attain top form. From the immense detail in cinematography to the intricacies in staging and direction, "The Way Back" is quite a spectacular feat. The trials and tribulations of weathering the natural elements and the affairs of mind and mood as the party treks to freedom is deftly captured by the acting caliber of the ensemble cast and the makeup team. Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, and one of the best of her age, Saoirse Ronan, give performances that resonate with what it is to be human under these very trying circumstances.

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Not every incredible story makes a compelling movie. "The Way Back" is inspired by a 4,000-mile foot journey that began with an escape from a Siberian prison camp in the dead of winter and continued across Mongolia and the Gobi Desert, ending finally months later in free India.

At every moment this is astonishing. Mongolia itself was said to be a prison because no one was thought able to walk out of it. Starvation is a daily possibility. So are injuries, disease, death by exposure or capture by locals eager to collect a reward. Thirst and sun are nearly fatal in the desert. The travelers have only the clothes on their backs. We know some of them reached India, because the saga opens with that news.

But how did they possibly do that? Just as we're told: by walking. Walking and walking. And there lies the weakness of Peter Weir 's film, which is nobly staged and has breathtaking cinematography but frankly, not enough of a story in the vulgar populist sense. Desperation and exhaustion make it difficult for the trekkers to work up much in the way of characters or conflicts, and while that no doubt spares us many cliches, we are left during their long walk with too much of a muchness.

The group is often so bearded and weathered that members seem interchangeable. Two who stand out are Ed Harris an American, who claims his name is only "Mr. Smith," and Colin Farrell as Valka, a Russian. (Has Harris ever given a bad performance?) The group is led by Jim Sturgess as Janusz, who's had the idea for the escape. Along the way they meet Irene ( Saoirse Ronan ), a young Polish woman. Her presence does not inspire romantic rivalries among the men. It's that kind of film.

Peter Weir is a master filmmaker (" Picnic at Hanging Rock ," " The Year of Living Dangerously ," " Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World "). His cinematographer Russell Boyd works both in tight quarters and with astonishing vistas at the roof of the world. The film is a visual feast. I am far from sorry I saw it.

But along with characterization, there is one area in which it seems to be lacking: details of survival. How exactly did they survive death by exposure in subzero Mongolia? Why didn't some of their meat spoil? Where did they find water in the desert? How did their footwear hold up — and why, as prisoners, did they have boots?

The answer, I fear, is that although "The Way Back" is described on its poster as "inspired by real events," it is fiction. The saga was first told in a book by Slavomir Rawicz, which was a European best-seller. But IMDb reports: "In 2006, the BBC unearthed records (including some written by Rawicz himself) that showed he had been released by the USSR in 1942."

There is an irony here. The film exhibits an admirable determination to do justice to a real story, but the story's not real. There's quite an op-ed debate going on right now between those (Neal Gabler) who say the cultural elite is finally being shouted down by populists and vulgarians, and others (A.O. Scott) who say such categories are meaningless. You like movies according to your own tastes.

Some people have bad taste and others have taste more like mine. Yet my taste is large. It contains multitudes. There is room for vulgarity, if it's well done. It's a shame to say so, but perhaps it would have helped "The Way Back" if Peter Weir had relaxed his standards slightly, slipped in some dramatic conflict and made better use of that pretty Polish girl.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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The Way Back (2011)

Rated PG-13 for violent content, physical hardships, a nude image, brief strong language

133 minutes

Gustaf Skarsgard as Voss

Jim Sturgess as Janusz

Ed Harris as Mr. Smith

Colin Farrell as Valka

Saoirse Ronan as Irena

Written and directed by

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'The Way Back': An Epic Escape, Short On Drama

Bob Mondello

The Long Route Home: Colin Farrell (left) and Ed Harris star in director Peter Weir's survival epic, about a group of prisoners banished to a Siberian gulag — and their astonishing march across thousands of miles to India. Newmarket Films hide caption

The Way Back

Director: Peter Weir
Genre: Drama
Running Time: 133 minutes

Rated PG-13 for violent content, nudity and strong language.

With: Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess

Watch clips

Credit: Newmarket Films

'Valka And The Wolf'

In a bleak prison yard in 1940, a Polish political prisoner named Janusz and a dozen other recently convicted "enemies of the Soviet people" stand freezing as a commandant tells them about the gulag to which Stalin has sent them, and in which they're likely to die.

"Understand," he says, "it's not our guns or wire or dogs that form your prison. Siberia is your prison — all 5 million square miles of it." With a bounty on their heads, and a thousand-mile walk to the nearest border, they can count on nature to be a "merciless jailer."

Still, dying in Siberian salt mines hardly qualifies as an attractive alternative, so Janusz (Jim Sturgess) and a clutch of mismatched comrades that includes a tight-lipped American expat (Ed Harris) and a thug with Stalin tattooed on his chest (Colin Farrell) begin planning a breakout. Drawing maps in the snow — it's barely more than guesswork as to where they are or where they need to get — they acknowledge that most of them will die in the attempt. But at least, says Janusz, they'll die free men.

Call that consolation of a sort as they trek, increasingly famished and exhausted, across frozen tundra, past the Great Wall of China and through the Gobi Desert to the foothills of the Himalayas, only to realize they still have another thousand miles to go.

The Way Back is based on The Long Walk , a bestselling 1950s memoir by Polish veteran Slavomir Rawicz that was thought to be the author's own story until, shortly after the fall of Polish communism, records surfaced establishing that Rawicz was actually freed in a 1942 amnesty. Another Polish veteran subsequently claimed that the story was based on his own walk to freedom, but by that time the book's narrative had been so widely called into question that holding filmmakers accountable for making up events and characters — Farrell's oddly inked bruiser is apparently an invention — seems pointless.

The film finesses the question by referring onscreen to The Long Walk as a book rather than a memoir, while the media notes refer to it as a novel. Whatever. True or not — and archived news reports from 1942 indicate that a handful of gulag refugees did surface in India after crossing the Himalayas on foot — the tale provides the framework for a persuasively grueling adventure.

Director Peter Weir has directed a lot of survival stories since he first received international attention for Picnic at Hanging Rock some 35 years ago. A substantial number of his films — Witness , Gallipoli , The Year of Living Dangerously , Fearless and The Mosquito Coast among them — can be characterized as stories of survivors in trying circumstances. And it's easy to see Weir as a Hollywood survivor himself, struggling to get pictures made despite an enviable track record. He has been telling interviewers that his three most recent projects foundered before this one clicked.

It's been seven years since his seafaring star vehicle Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World , and as a way back, The Way Back certainly qualifies as different: independently financed rather than studio-made, with characters navigating not oceans and naval battles, but mountains, sandstorms and, on one bug-infested shoreline, even a mosquito coast of sorts.

Weir, who not only directed but also co-wrote the story, keeps things brisk and elemental. But while the performers are game, the images (shot mostly in Bulgaria and Pakistan) decently breathtaking, and the story legitimately harrowing, the film that contains them feels oddly undramatic — proof of the maxim that epic elements don't mean much without engaging characters to hang them on. Admirable though they may be for their pluck and endurance, Janusz and his comrades never come into sharp-enough focus to make you care about them. And without emotional involvement, The Way Back is just a long walk.

clock This article was published more than 13 years ago

Movie review: ‘The Way Back’

"It's not our guns or wire or dogs that form your prison. Siberia is your prison," a Soviet official proclaims to a miserable collection of prisoners new to the gulag, in Peter Weir's historically dubious but dramatically compelling story of escape and endurance, "The Way Back." The official points at the windswept, snowy forests that surround the camp. "Nature is your jailer," he continues, "and she is without mercy."

But in 1940, one of those prisoners, Janusz (Jim Sturgess), leads an improbable escape from the remote prison, 4,000 miles on foot from Siberia to India. How improbable? You’d never believe it, if it weren’t for the movie’s assurances that it’s based on a true story. And since those assurances are suspect — at best, “The Way Back” is based on Slavomir Rawicz’s discredited memoir “The Long Walk,” and at worst, a tall tale — it may be just a little too improbable. Weir’s movie is superbly made, but its fancy-dancing around history gives a hint of inauthenticity to a film that otherwise thrives on its reverence for historical detail.

Janusz and his fellow prisoners must endure the cold, as nights in the Siberian steppes can reach 40 below. Then there’s the unrelenting thirst of the Gobi Desert. There’s hunger; in one memorable scene, they chase a pack of wolves away from a fresh kill, then descend upon the carcass, wild animals themselves. There’s even a plague of mosquitoes, which swarm the poor escapees unceasingly and nearly drive them mad. (That detail might strike viewers as overblown, but anyone who has read Ian Frazier’s recent “Travels in Siberia” will wince, remembering his vivid description of Siberian mosquitoes pouring from the sky “as if shot from a fire hose.”)

Not all the escapees will reach their destination. (That’s no spoiler; an opening caption says as much, and even if it didn’t, the screenplay by Weir and Keith Clarke does an excellent job laying out the steep odds.) But in their long and difficult journey through taiga and sand, over mountains and under the Great Wall, they all achieve a certain heroic stature. Even if they must die, as Janusz points out before the trek begins, at least they’ll die free.

Standouts in the international cast include Colin Farrell as a Russian criminal with a big knife, and the exceptional Romanian actor Dragos Bucur (“The Death of Mr. Lazarescu”) as an accountant with a quick wit. The touching Saoirse Ronan (“Atonement”) plays Irena, a Polish orphan who joins the trek along the way.

Best of all is Ed Harris, playing a reserved American engineer named Smith, and not just because Weir can explore the weathered crags of his face as if they were the valleys of the Gobi Desert. Smith warns Janusz that the Pole’s kindness might be the end of him, but when Smith forms a bond with Irena, Harris shows how the water of affection can enliven even the most sere of deserts.

That’s not to say that there’s much hugging and bonding in “The Way Back”; the movie is blissfully free of heroic speeches, swelling music cues, or overwrought death scenes. Weir has always been interested in men made small, fighting against the vastness of the world, whether it’s the Australian outback of “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” the raging seas in “Master and Commander” or the artificial universe of “The Truman Show.” Long, wordless stretches of “The Way Back” take that theme to its endpoint, with Weir’s camera capturing the pitiful crew as they struggle across the momentous, beautiful landscapes.

“The Way Back” diligently catalogs the outrages through which extreme cold, hunger and thirst put the body, and Weir’s camera finds the terrible beauty in his actors’ chapped lips, windburned cheeks and tenderized feet.

But is an astonishing true story as impressive when it isn’t exactly true? The movie opens and closes with documentary footage of the Soviet spread through Eastern Europe, and places its characters definitively within that historical context. But a recent BBC radio documentary suggests that Rawicz, author of the 1956 book “The Long Walk,” never escaped from the gulag. Perhaps his story belongs to another, or perhaps he made it up.

In interviews, Weir is careful to refer to “The Long Walk” as a novel and the film as fiction; the movie itself, and its advertising campaign, fudge it. (The film’s National Geographic imprimatur adds to the confusion.) “Inspired by real events,” the poster proclaims, which sounds better than “Inspired by apocryphal events that may or may not have actually happened.”

Does it matter? It shouldn’t, I guess: “The Way Back” is a compelling movie. In fact, it’s an uplifting, complicated work of art from a director whose ability to tell intimate stories on a big historical canvas is unmatched in Hollywood. While viewers who prize veracity will quibble with the film’s framing of this unlikely tale, those who value cracking storytelling will find much to love.

Kois is a freelance reviewer.

PG-13. At area theaters. Contains violent content, depiction of physical hardships, a nude image and brief strong language. 132 minutes.

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The Way Back

An impressive but not especially immersive true story of four POWs who escaped the Siberian Gulags.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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After nearly a seven-year absence, director Peter Weir makes his long-awaited return with “ The Way Back,” an impressive but not especially immersive true story of four POWs who escaped the Siberian Gulags and crossed the Himalayas on foot to freedom. Acquired by Newmarket Films immediately before its Telluride Film Festival debut, this arduous travelogue focuses on the macro (stunning, David Lean-like landscapes) and the micro (countless closeups of blistered flesh) to the virtual exclusion of compelling characters. While the name cast should aid overseas prospects, American auds won’t be going out of their way to experience this long, dry slog.

Weir, who veers from the specifics presented in Slavomir Rawicz’s book “The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom” due to controversies surrounding its authenticity, gave himself room to fictionalize the epic journey. But the director clearly finds the voyage more important than the voyagers, doing little to dramatically enhance the story’s central group of escapees (which includes Jim Sturgess as an alleged Polish spy, Colin Farrell as a Russian mobster, Ed Harris as an enigmatic American and four other nondescript prisoners).

The film opens in Russia-occupied Poland, late 1939, to find Janusz (Sturgess) being denounced by his wife and sentenced to hard time in a remote Siberian labor camp — a frozen hellhole where the elements are just as effective as the guns, dogs and fences at discouraging escape. Weir fills these scenes with gritty detail, creating a vivid picture of Gulag life in a relatively short time. Between the bedbugs , bad food and brutal company, it’s easy to understand why Janusz would rather risk death on the outside, though Weir has another idea in mind: The protag must survive in order to get back to his wife (despite her betrayal), and the impossibly long journey will not end until he can do so (which explains not only the title,

but also a strange recurring vision of Janusz reaching for the front door of his home whenever things get tough).

Gathering half a dozen other prisoners, Janusz makes a break for it during a blizzard (we know from an ill-advised opening card that only three will make it as far as India). Driven by “kindness” and a need to forgive, Janusz immediately puts his survivalist skills to use on the outside, fashioning facemasks from birch bark and using tricks from his hunting days to steer them south.

The Russian guards give chase at first, but only for a few minutes, after which the suspense thaws in favor an all-too-linear account of the 4,000-mile hike. This takes the multinational group (whose conversation alternates between their native tongues and thickly accented English) around a mosquito-infested lake, across the Great Wall of China, through the Gobi Desert to Tibet and, finally, over the snow-capped Himalayas.

Along the way, Weir constantly shows the group hiding in bushes, as if to avoid detection by the communists they pass along the way, but it never feels as if they are in danger of being discovered. With no one in pursuit, the real adversary becomes nature itself, which threatens them with starvation, dehydration, hypothermia and a whole range of incredibly nasty foot injuries the director uses to reinforce the impression of unflinching realism.

The only person to pay them much mind is a parentless Polish girl (“The Lovely Bones’?” Saoirse Ronan), first seen lurking in the woods. When she begs to join them, the group’s grizzled pragmatist (Harris) warns that she will become a liability, while Farrell’s character (who resorts to eating bugs at one point) jokes that having more bodies could provide meat if things get dire. Fortunately, it never comes to cannibalism, and time soon endears the girl to the group. Despite Weir’s efforts to make us care about the characters, the humans are constantly at risk of disappearing against the immensity of their surroundings.

The bigscreen craves images like those in “ The Way Back ,” but audiences crave a reason to care, and however impressive specific scenes may be (crossing a sheet of thin ice and chasing a desert mirage stand out), for such a singular story, the film doesn’t feel particularly unique. “Mongol” managed to out-Lean “The Way Back ” on the same turf (offering Genghis Khan as our point of entry), while true cons-on-the-run thriller “Van Diemen’s Land” told of an even more harrowing cross-country trek set in Weir’s native Australia.

The roles not designated to stars (namely, an artist and a comedian in the group) often blur together, while the others keep their feelings hidden from one another. Harris’ “Mr. Smith” and Janusz both have deep-seated motives for survival, which Weir doesn’t reveal until too late.

Production: A Newmarket Films (in U.S.) release of an Exclusive Media Group, National Geographic Entertainment, ImageNation Abu Dhabi presentation of an Exclusive Films production, co-financed by Polish Film Institute, Monolith Films. (International sales: Exclusive Films, London.) Produced by Joni Levin, Peter Weir, Duncan Henderson, Nigel Sinclair. Executive producers, Keith Clarke, John Ptak, Guy East, Simon Oakes, Tobin Armbrust, Jake Eberts, Edward Borgerding, Mohamed Khalaf, Adam Leipzig, Scott Rudin, Jonathan Schwartz. Co-producer, Roee Sharon Peled. Co-executive producer, Alex Brunner. Directed, written by Peter Weir, based on the novel "The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom" by Slavomir Rawicz.
Crew: Camera (color/B&W, Panavision widescreen), Russell Boyd; editor, Lee Smith; music, Burkhard Dallwitz; production designer, John Stoddart; art director, Kes Bonnet; costume designer, Wendy Stites; sound (Dolby Digital), Martin Muller; supervising sound editor, Richard King; re-recording mixer, Ron Bartlett; visual effects supervisors, Tim Crosbie, Dennis Jones; visual effects, Rising Sun, Visual Symphony, Crazy Horse; assistant director, Alan B. Curtiss, Robert Huberman, Todor Chapkanov; second unit director, R.J. Mino; second unit camera, Mark Vargo; casting, Lina Todd, Judy Bouley. Reviewed at Telluride Film Festival, Sept. 4, 2010. Running time: 133 MIN.
With: With: Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, Alexandru Potocean, Sebastian Urzendowsky, Gustaf Skarsgard, Dragos Bucur, Saoirse Ronan, Mark Strong. (English, Russian, Polish dialogue)

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The Way Back – review

F or his first film in seven years, Peter Weir has chosen to tell an epic tale with a panoramic sweep, in the manner of David Lean. It is "inspired" by a true story, which may unfortunately have been itself merely "inspired" by what its author claims to be the truth. Its veracity was in question even before it was put through the movie mill. This source material was a bestseller by the Polish army lieutenant Slavomir Rawicz, who was imprisoned by the Soviets after their invasion of 1939, accused of spying and sent to the Siberian gulag. In his book, he claimed that with a group of other prisoners he pulled off a daring escape during a blizzard in 1941; against incredible odds, and fired by an overwhelming need to survive, this group reportedly managed the astonishing feat of trekking thousands of miles to safety in British India. Since publication, his account has been disputed. There are suggestions that it is entirely fictional, or that Rawicz appropriated and conflated other people's apocryphal tales. Weir has reportedly added more background material with extended research and survivor interviews of his own.

Of course, if it simply didn't happen at all, to anyone, then readers and movie audiences are entitled to ask what value the story has – except, conceivably, as an image for humanity's long, persistent slog away from the prison of Soviet tyranny. This, in fact, is the idea suggested in one late sequence: a historical newsreel montage showing the Poles' postwar communist rule, the Hungarian uprising, the Solidarity trade union, the fall of the Berlin Wall etc, all with a pair of trudging boots at the top of the frame. However, even if disbelieved in the literal sense, The Way Back is still an engaging, old-fashioned piece of storytelling.

At its centre is Janusz, played earnestly though also sometimes with a slightly flavourless efficiency, by the 29-year-old British actor Jim Sturgess; he is a Pole whose young wife is tortured by the Soviets into denouncing him as a spy. Janusz is sent to the Siberian gulag for 20 years, a terrifying place where the inmates are told by the commander that it is not the barbed wire, guards and dogs that make up their prison but the vast and forbidding landscape itself. (Weir may be alluding here to a very similar speech from the Japanese camp commandant at the beginning of Lean's Bridge on the River Kwai.)

Here, Janusz meets mercurial former actor Khabarov (Mark Strong) whose tall tales of escape inspire him to make a break. Among his group are an enigmatic American, known only as "Mr Smith", played by Ed Harris as a grizzled cynic; Zoran, played by Romanian actor Dragos Bucur; enigmatic Irena, played by Saoirse Ronan , who joins them on the road, and a gangster called Valka, played by Colin Farrell – a professional criminal who joins the escape party purely to get away from other mobsters inside who want to kill him over gambling debts. Valka is apparently set up to be the heart-of-gold lowlife who is surely destined to redeem himself by taking one for the team just before the final credits. In fact, that isn't exactly what happens, and, a little disconcertingly, Valka turns out to have a sentimental regard for Stalin. Messy, contradictory details like this, paradoxically, argue for the story's reality.

There is something surreal in seeing the group, in long-shot, inching like insects through the snowy wastes of Siberia, or the rippling vastness of the Gobi desert, tormented by what may or may not be mirages of oases – another pleasingly old-fashioned touch. In the gulag, one finds he can survive through his knack for storytelling: he starts reciting what he remembers of Stevenson's Treasure Island, and a saucer-eyed crowd of murderous tough guys are held spellbound, promising pieces of bread if he can continue. Another valuable commodity inside is the ability to make pornographic drawings, which become currency like cigarettes. Later, when the artist makes a sketch of one of his haggard fellow escapers, the subject looks at his portrait and wonderingly says that it looks just like his father. Again, a nice touch.

The Way Back is a robustly made picture, heartfelt, well executed with an exhilarating sense of reach and narrative ambition. Where it falls down is a lack of personal intensity to match the spectacle. There is nothing that interesting to discover about Janusz, and nothing that interesting for him to discover about himself; even the secrets disclosed about the other escapers don't have much of an impact on the group dynamic. Well, this isn't an overwhelming problem. Weir has put together a good film – oddly, though, considering its scale, it feels like a rather small one.

Released on Boxing Day.

Colin Farrell
Drama films
Saoirse Ronan
Mark Strong

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The Way Back: movie review

Peter Weir’s 'The Way back' is a harrowing escape story of a gulag survivor.

By Peter Rainer Film critic

January 21, 2011

Peter Weir is a director who does not, to put it mildly, knock out one movie after another. His last, " Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World ," came out seven years ago. After a series of collapsed projects, he's finally come through with " The Way Back ," about a long trek by gulag prisoners to freedom. No doubt the subject hit home with him.

The film is based on a 1956 memoir by Polish soldier Slavomir Rawicz, "The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom," that was subsequently, at least in part, discredited. (He was indeed forced-marched by the Russians to a Siberian gulag but he didn't escape, he was amnestied.)

Related: Ten best movies of 2010

Nevertheless, the film's core idea, that some people will do anything to survive even the harshest conditions, has a primal pull. This is an "inspired by" movie and is best approached in that spirit – i.e., don't hold the filmmakers accountable, folks.

It opens in 1940 in Russia -occupied Poland with the sentencing of Janusz ( Jim Sturgess ), a Polish soldier who has been denounced on trumped-up espionage charges by his wife and sentenced to a Siberian labor camp. Janusz recognizes that his wife was likely tortured and his prime reason for escaping the gulag is to work his way back to her to forgive her.

The early sequences in the gulag are so hard-bitten and harrowing that the escape by Janusz and six other prisoners represents a liberation for us as well. Weir and co-writer Keith Clarke don't fill out these opening scenes with a lot of hokey Hollywood theatrics. Despite the presence of some well-known actors – including Ed Harris playing an American laborer who fled Depression-era America for work in Russia and Colin Farrell as a Russian mobster – a semidocumentary harshness hangs over these early scenes.

Because the climate is so killing, the gulag is not overwhelmingly well guarded. It doesn't need to be. The prisoners escape knowing full well that the elements will probably do them in faster than any guns or dogs. And so begins a 4,000-mile slog spanning four seasons through the frozen forests of Siberia , the plains of Mongolia , across the Great Wall of China and the Gobi Desert to Tibet , and, finally, the snowcapped Himalayas . It's a survivalist travelogue, and Weir, a detail freak, makes certain we experience every inch of the journey by offering up choice close-ups of blistering and bloody feet, hands, scorched skin, and pustules.

Weir's emphasis on the hypothermic rigors of the trek, the starvation, the dehydration, is, at least for a while, welcome in a genre that often skimps on the real stuff. But the downside is that the detailing takes over the movie. The characterizations of the people on this long slog – they are eventually joined by an orphaned Polish girl ( Saoirse Ronan ) – are far less delineated than their dermatological condition.

Another, more fundamental problem is that, once the prisoners escape, their only real antagonist is the weather. They are always hiding out for pursuers who never arrive. There's an absurdist, Beckett-like aspect to all this, although I'm not sure this is what Weir was reaching for. More likely he was emphasizing the weather-as-antagonist scenario because he realized he didn't have any other options (although, since much of this material is made up anyway, why didn't he?). Once we leave the gulag, the bad guys are the sun, the earth, rocks, ice.

Weir has an epic imagination but, unlike, say David Lean , he doesn't fill out the epic vision with epic characters. The result is a film that seems simultaneously grand and skimpy. For all its faults, it's an honorable effort, though. I hope Weir doesn't wait seven more years for his next film. Grade: B ( Rated PG-13 for violent content, depiction of physical hardships, a nude image, and brief strong language.)

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Movie Review

The way back.

US Release Date: 01-21-2011

Directed by: Peter Weir

Starring ▸ ▾

Jim Sturgess , as
Ed Harris , as
Colin Farrell , as
Dragos Bucur , as
Alexandru Potocean , as
Saoirse Ronan , as
Gustaf Skarsgard , as
Mark Strong , as
Sebastian Urzendowsky , as
Dejan Angelov as

Colin Farrell and Ed Harris on their way back.

Peter Weir ( Dead Poets Society , The Truman Show ) directed this story based on the memoirs of Slavomir Rawicz. He and two fellow prisoners escaped from a Siberian gulag in 1940 and eventually walked 4,000 miles to freedom in India. In the movie a group of five political prisoners from the recently invaded Poland escape along with an old-timer American (Ed Harris) generically called Mr. Smith, and a Russian criminal played with relish by Colin Farrell.

At the beginning of the movie we are told that only three men make it to the end of the journey. The question of who will and who will not survive begins immediately after their escape during a blinding blizzard. The men face the most extreme climate conditions imaginable and literally thousands of miles of rugged unforgiving terrain.

Along the way they encounter a young girl. At first they are reluctant to let her join their group but she eventually wins them over and in her own way brings them closer together. As their incredible journey goes on and on they grow nearer to starvation, dehydration and sunstroke with each passing day. The toll the elements take shows clearly on their faces. The make-up artists convincingly created red, chapped and blistered skin and garnered the movie its one and only Oscar nomination.

National Geographic Films was one of the production companies for The Way Back . It was shot in Bulgaria, Morocco and India and the panoramic cinematography is quite breathtaking. You definitely get a feel for the vast distances being traversed as well as an idea of just how indestructible the human will to survive can be.

The acting is first rate and the script throws in enough details to make these characters seem like fully fleshed out human beings. An occasional laugh is even produced, usually at the outlandishness of the situation and how slight the odds are that any of them will get back alive; humor as a means of maintaining one’s sanity.

My only complaint about The Way Back is the pacing. The story takes too long to get going and it plods along at the same methodical pace throughout. We already know they escape, so the movie should have begun with that and we could have been introduced to the men on the way. Trimming 15 to 20 minutes off the run time would make a big difference. Despite the slow path it takes The Way Back is still worth following.

Colin Farrell in The Way Back .

As this movie progressed I found myself wondering which parts of it were added for the movie and which parts were real. I assumed the American character played by Ed Harris was added, in the same way that Steve McQueen was added to The Great Escape in order for the movie to appeal more to American audiences. I also assumed that Irena was put in the movie to try and add some female appeal.

Some quick Internet research later and I discovered that it turns out, according to a BBC Documentary backed up by documentation, that everything in the movie was made up as Slavomir Rawicz, the author of the book, and the person the main character in the film was based on, was actually released by the Russians in 1942 and he never escaped in the first place. This doesn't really hurt the movie dramatically, but I might have viewed it differently had I known it wasn't true at all.

Like you Patrick, I found the biggest problem with the movie to be its pacing. It runs a hefty 2 hours and 12 minutes and feels even longer. By the end of it you'll feel like you walked with them from Siberia to India. Part of the probelm with this is that the most exciting parts are at the beginning of the story. Once they escape from Russia, there's never any tension, just slow plod.

It also doesn't help that Colin Farrell's character never leaves Russia with them. He is certainly the most colorful and entertaining character and once he's gone, he leaves a huge gap that's never refilled. He and Ed Harris are the two brightest parts of the film, with the most personality.

Visually the movie is stunning with vista after vista of beauty spread out on the screen. There's so much of it and it moves so slowly that at times it feels more like a travelogue than a movie. And certainly the makeup is deserving of awards as these guys and lone girl are battered by the elements, with their hardships written all over their faces and bodies.

Despite the fact that contrary to its claims, the plot is probably fictional, I do agree with you Patrick that it's a journey worth taking, but it's not one I'll ever want to go on again.

Gustaf Skarsgard, Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess and Colin Farrell looking for the way back.

My son and I were a bit disappointed to discover, via Scott's reviews, that this is not a true story. It opens as if it were. A movie with a similar plot line, As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me (2001) is based on a true story. It is about a German soldier who escaped from a Siberian prison camp, and walked thousands of miles to freedom. The Way Back may not be a true story but is is not an entirely unrealistic quest.

Some things in the movie though, are unrealistic. In one scene, one of the prisoners asks Farrell to remove his shirt as he is going to shave his face. Farrell's beard is several weeks old, yet he does not even have a hint of chest hair stubble. For a film noted for it's makeup, it is a obvious mistake. Another thing I found convenient was that everyone of the prisoners seem to be able to speak several languages. Farrell's and Ronan's Irish accents slip several times. Listen to Ronan say, "It looks like a birds nest."

I disagree with Patrick. These characters never seem like fully fleshed out human beings. We occasionally get little bits of information on these folks but we never really see any personalities. Farrell, as Valka, is the most unique one of the bunch. He is a violent, communist criminal, who only looks out for himself. Every other character can simply be described as nice. They may have different backgrounds, but as they traveled they were interchangeable.

I agree with Scott about the length. Several times I assumed, and hoped, it was over only to discover they had another barren waste land to cross. If the movie accomplishes anything it is that the audience suffers along with the characters. The Way Back is far too long of a journey, and watch, for far too little reward.

Photos © Copyright Exclusive Films (2011)

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The way back, common sense media reviewers.

Rousing but intense war/wilderness survival adventure.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The characters may be prisoners (and some of them

Main character Janusz is the strongest role model.

Disturbing imagery relating to both prison and wil

Very brief but strong sexual imagery. One of the p

Language is infrequent but includes more than one

Characters trade cigarettes in prison, but there's

Positive Messages

The characters may be prisoners (and some of them do seem violent and dangerous), but they quickly learn to work together, help each other, and trust each other to overcome their nearly impossible challenges. There are plenty of examples of teamwork and empathy here.

Positive Role Models

Main character Janusz is the strongest role model. At one point, another character warns that "kindness can kill him," but Janusz proves that he can hang onto his humanity and his kindness in the most trying of circumstances. He'll risk his own safety to help others, and his example inspires the others. Plenty of sharing and working together to overcome the odds.

Violence & Scariness

Disturbing imagery relating to both prison and wilderness survival. Characters are starving and thirsty, exhausted and dirty. Teeth fall out, feet are bleeding and/or swollen, and characters get sunstroke. Other brief violence involves a stabbing with a knife and some blood. A character freezes to death. There's a spoken story about a main character strangling a boy.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Very brief but strong sexual imagery. One of the prisoners makes drawings of naked women in various poses and trades them for supplies.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Language is infrequent but includes more than one use of "f--k," plus sparing use of "s--t," "damn," and "ass."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters trade cigarettes in prison, but there's little actual smoking. In one scene, characters share a bottle of vodka around a campfire.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that because this rousing, World War II-era adventure film focuses on prison and wilderness survival, there's plenty of intense, disturbing imagery -- such as blood, sickness, starvation, and death. But at the same time, the movie has strong, inspiring messages related to teamwork, kindness, and overcoming challenges. Expect a bit of violence and infrequent but strong swearing (including "f--k"), as well as images of naked women in the form of drawings used as prison currency. Characters also trade cigarettes while they're imprisoned and, in one scene, share a bottle of vodka. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

Parents say (2)
Kids say (6)

Based on 2 parent reviews

not that much emotionally involving but very epic like slow paced movie.

What's the story.

During World War II, Janusz ( Jim Sturgess ) is arrested and thrown into a Siberian gulag. With the help of more experienced inmates like Valka ( Colin Farrell ) and "Mr. Smith" ( Ed Harris ), seven prisoners manage a successful escape into the woods. Along the way, they pick up a runaway girl, Irena ( Saoirse Ronan ), despite worries that she'll slow them down. Against all odds, they survive the harsh, freezing elements and complete the long trek south to the Mongolian border. But circumstances are against them, and they discover that they must keep walking, through Mongolia and Tibet and into India, across the dry, brutal flatlands. How long can this ragtag band stay alive?

Is It Any Good?

As he did in the excellent Master and Commander , Australian director Peter Weir makes this wartime tale a sleek, rousing, old-fashioned adventure instead of a somber, self-important epic slog. He accomplishes that by focusing on the relationships between the men and taking a cue from old-time studio filmmakers like Howard Hawks .

THE WAY BACK is arguably less fun than Master and Commander , mainly because of the disturbing imagery (i.e. starvation, sickness, death, etc.) that inherently goes with prison movies and wilderness survival movies. But Weir makes it all bearable with his general swiftness and tone. The actors follow suit with warm performances from everyone involved, especially Farrell as a dangerous but boisterous misfit. In the end, teamwork, sharing, and kindness win out over violence and cruelty.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the movie's violence and disturbing imagery. Was it necessary to the plot? Was it thrilling or upsetting? How did the movie achieve that reaction?

How do the characters change over the course of the movie? What do they learn?

Some of the male characters think that bringing a girl (Irena) along will slow them down. Is this a stereotype ? Does Irena prove them wrong, or not? What do they learn from her?

Movie Details

In theaters : January 21, 2011
On DVD or streaming : April 21, 2011
Cast : Colin Farrell , Ed Harris , Jim Sturgess , Saoirse Ronan
Director : Peter Weir
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Newmarket Film Group
Genre : Action/Adventure
Run time : 133 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : violent content, depiction of physical hardships, a nude image and brief strong language
Last updated : March 3, 2024

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THE WAY BACK

By: debbie lynn elias

In 1956, the world was gifted with an astounding “autobiography” by Slavomir Rawicz – “The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom. Translated into 30 languages, this was the story of Rawicz’ escape from a Siberian gulag and his 4000 mile trek from Siberia to India and to freedom. (Get your history books out boys and girls and read up!) According to Rawicz, he and several other prisoners escaped the gulag in 1940 and crossed the continent on foot with only one sack of food scraps they had been collecting and only one knife, eventually emerging from the Himalayan mountains in 1941.

A mesmerizing and inspirational story, it seemed inevitable that it would be made into a film; in fact, it was originally optioned by Laurence Harvey as well as being slated at Warner Bros. with Burt Lancaster to star. But as time and life would have it, nothing came to fruition until the book was optioned by Keith Clarke who then teamed up with uber epic director Peter Weir to bring us what we now see – one of the most heart wrenching, inspiring and courageous stories of survival to grace the silver screen – THE WAY BACK.

Each known for their meticulous attention to detail, Clarke and Weir didn’t just jump into this project. They researched and re-researched, interviewed and re-interviewed, traveled to over 8 countries, all in an effort to verify Rawicz’ accounts and to provide more depth and accuracy to the film. Over the years, a BBC documentary was produced that discounted Rawicz, alleging him not be truthful or that the book was about other prisoners and not himself. And while the truth was uncovered by Clarke indicating that Rawicz had, in fact, been amnestied and made his own trek from Siberia to the Middle East, it was also learned that at least four other Polish prisoners did escape and make the arduous 4000 mile journey to freedom in India. It is now immaterial whether or not Rawicz escaped or was amnestied or whether he trekked from Siberia to India or the Middle East. What matters is that Rawicz shed a light on the horrors of the Stalin regime and the darkness – and courage – that filled the world. 20 million souls passed through the gulags. Inspired by their story, THE WAY BACK is a magnificent and powerful fictional account of seven of them.

Janusz is a young officer in the Polish army. Eager and affable, he is taken prisoner by the Soviets under the most heinous and threatening of emotional circumstances. On capture, all prisoners were taken to the Siberian gulags where the temperature would drop of 70 below zero and malnutrition was the watchword of the day. Performing hard labor out in the blizzardous conditions or slaving in the gold mines, most prisoners never survived beyond a winter. On arriving at the gulag, Janusz meets up Khabarov, a chatty man, imprisoned for his politics. But Khabarov is also a dreamer and speaks only of escape and his plan to accomplish it. Inspired by Khabarov, Janusz hatches his own plan of escape and “befriends” several other prisoners with a desperate desire to live no matter what the cost in trying. Mr. Smith and his son left the Depression of the USA and went to Russia to work on the rail lines only to be taken captive (some 7000 Americans disappeared in the gulags). Valka, a local Russian criminal is actually in the gulag for his crimes. While Voss has been taken captive because of his religious beliefs, and artist Tomasz and the young Kazik have been taken just because they could be.

Escaping the gulag under cover of a blizzard, the little troupe heads first for Lake Baikal which is weeks away under the best of circumstances. If they can get there, they have a chance to taste freedom. Pressing ever forward, personalities take shape and alliances and conflicts form, as the number one priority becomes outrunning their captors, followed by food, water and reliance on one another.

As we know from the opening of the film, only three men emerge from the Himalayas and as the film progresses we go along on the journey, as hardship, pain and sickness pick them off one by one. From the ice and snow of Siberia to the 120 degree heat of the desert, we are travelling with these men, suffering with them and, in our hearts, urging them ever forward. Along the way, they encounter a young local girl named Irena and it is through her that the character and heart of each man takes shape and we see the men finally become one.

I have to commend each actor for their dedication to THE WAY BACK. From the physical hardships of eating just enough food to maintain energy to film, to the harsh shooting conditions of Mother Nature, as well as man-made harshness on a sound stage, each actor is beyond amazing. As if the physical nature of these roles wasn’t enough, each learned Russian, Polish or both. Particularly notable is Colin Farrell’s Russian and his accent when speaking English which was brilliantly executed.

This is the finest performance of Jim Sturgess’ career. As Janusz, he fills the screen and carries the film with an inner strength and drive that is infectious. Sturgess gives Janusz this great like-ability and empathy that rivets you to the screen, even as Janusz is pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing his companions ever harder. It is the kindness within the character of Janusz that Sturgess uses to take the film to a higher emotional level.

Interestingly, in terms of acting and characterization, I felt nothing for Colin Farrell’s Valka. And while the character was not likeable in the least, it speaks volumes as Farrell’s abilities to give a performance that is spot on and that has some redemptive qualities that leak to the surface.

What can one say about Ed Harris. Ed Harris is Ed Harris is Ed Harris. Always strong and commanding no matter what the role, as Mr. Smith he is no different. Harris brings a tacit emotional strength and with the introduction of Saoirse Ronan’s Irena, this beautiful paternal love and affection. It is exciting to watch the emotional transformation he brings to Smith.

And as for Saoirse Ronan, her performance as Irena is beautifully done as she is the catalyst that gave some depth to the each man and serves as the connective tissue among them. It is through her that we learn about each beyond the superficial bravado or wimpiness; her character elicits the qualities of the human spirit that are necessary to survive and Ronan has a great natural gift at bringing this about. She also brings a carefree lightness to the dirt and dark of the gulag and the hardship of the journey; a breathe of fresh air.

Written by Peter Weir and Keith Clarke, the story itself is miraculous and motivational. On first seeing the film, however, I felt Weir had fallen short in his direction where it came to the dissection of the emotion of the human condition, concentrating on the physical hardships as opposed to the mental and emotional. But by film’s end, I was completely engrossed in the psyche of each man for it is through that visual physical hardship that we learn and feel the powerful emotional and mental fortitude of man.

Technically, the film is masterful, but for a few exceptions that fall more within script continuity and common sense flaws. As he did with Weir in “Master and Commander”, Russell Boyd’s cinematography is exemplary. Wonderful choices of patina, as well as lighting and framing – long shots of 7 little bodies, and then 5 little bodies and then 4 and then 3 trudging through the elements in vast openness be it desert, snow or mountains, reinforces the singularity, the lonesomeness, the aloneness of our band of not so merry men and girl. Close-ups are almost non-existent with one or two exceptions – Ed Harris’s Smith when purple and blistered and near death in the desert and then a rapidly fading Irena, the latter of which is quite beautiful and touching with a shot just wide enough to show her angelic blissfully peaceful face and the hands of some of the men holding hers. Those shots brought a tear to my eye and according to Weir, close-ups such as those weree reserved for that very purpose. On the slip side, the grit that Boyd brings to the gulag with the lighting and sickly green patina, contrasted by the pristine beauty and cleanliness of the pure white snow outside is striking. The globe trotting that was implemented in filming only adds to the overall visual and technical splendor. And the scenes of blizzards and a desert sandstorm – brilliant. Another integral part of this production is the sound which is so precise and meticulous, each raindrop, each pebble, each voice against a howling wind is exquisitely blended and toned.

Perhaps nitpicky, but disturbing disconnected were two scenes – one involving Ed Harris post “almost dead” and then when addressing the food the men scavenged before their escape. We are given a sense of a long time collection of food before the escape – meat, root vegetables and bread – yet nothing was molded. Granted, cold will keep food longer, but this seems a bit much. And then we have a very emotional scene with a purple blistered Ed Harris in the desert but after a pep talk from James Sturgess’ Janusz, he is up walking and hiking with a face that is no longer sunburned, purple or blistered. Was that water at the mirage, miracle water from the Dead Sea or some holy place? A cure all? His skin looked wonderful and rejuvenated.

When I asked Peter Weir what compelled him to tell this magnificent story of the human spirit, his response was heartfelt. “I can say now what I didn’t know then. I just felt it. It was human beings up against great landscapes. It was faces juxtaposed with mountains and forests. Human nature and nature. And then, specifically, what was it inside these people that enabled them to survive. What could they draw on? What is that we do draw on? What makes us survive anyway? What makes us keep going?” Weir succinctly answers these questions within the film to an inspiring level.

THE WAY BACK. A majestic and powerful film. A triumph of the human spirit.

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Review: 'the way back' is a long walk.

"The Way Back" is the first Peter Weir movie since 2003
The film follows six men attempting a 4,000 mile walk to freedom
Reviewer says watching might be a bit of an endurance test
The film is based on Slavomir Rawicz's 1954 memoir "The Long Walk"

(CNN) -- Peter Weir doesn't make films in a hurry -- just 10 over the past 30 years, and nothing at all since "Master and Commander" in 2003 -- but they're almost always worth waiting for. Among them, "Witness" stands as a popular classic, while "Picnic at Hanging Rock" remains a landmark in Australian cinema, an enigma throbbing with atmosphere.

"The Way Back" is a full-scale epic: a World War II era survival story about six men who break out of a Siberian gulag and their perilous 4,000-mile walk to freedom. It's an ambitious, imposing film in which nature supplies the special effects, but at the same time, audiences may find it's a long slog and a bit of an endurance test.

The tempo is, well, walking pace.

Not that Weir wastes much time in the gulag itself, a hellhole in which the prisoners fight for scraps of food, the barracks are overrun with lice and labor details are left to freeze in blizzards or work in the mines until they drop. The escape itself is easily accomplished, a break in the barbed wire fence when a snowstorm has blinded the guards.

If security is lax, it's because the frying pan may be worse than the fire. Siberia in the depths of winter offers infinite forests, subarctic temperatures, and minimal sustenance. It takes a special kind of desperation to tackle those odds.

Six men make the break, united only in a plan to head south and keep going until they have walked their way out of Stalin's reach.

Janusz (Jim Sturgess) is a Polish political prisoner haunted by the memory of his betrayal by his wife. A taciturn American, Mr. Smith (Ed Harris), is convinced that they will perish in the mines within months. Valka, a Russian gangster (Colin Farrell), has racked up too many debts inside and he's certain he'll be murdered if he doesn't get out.

It's a true story -- maybe. Slavomir Rawicz's 1954 memoir "The Long Walk" has been challenged by historians, and it may be safest to treat his account as historical fiction. For better or worse, Weir and co-writer Keith Clarke keep the phony dramatics to a minimum. There's not even much talk, until Saoirse Ronan's teenage runaway hooks up with them and gradually unlocks the men's stories.

The emphasis is on grueling physical hardship, ice, snow and sandstorms as well as the real possibility of starvation, and the will that keeps these men trudging forward into Mongolia, across the Gobi Desert, into Tibet and ultimately across the Himalayas.

From the artificial TV world of "The Truman Show" to the jungle in "The Mosquito Coast," Weir has always been particularly sensitive to how environment affects the human soul. Here that theme gets a broad canvas, and while not all the men make it, it's a surprisingly optimistic film in which Janusz not only retains his compassion, but wins over Farrell's callous thug and Harris' withdrawn American. Ironically, while the characters suffer, we are privileged to bathe in Russell Boyd's glorious cinematography.

If the film doesn't register with the impact of David Lean's epics -- and watching it, we're bound to think of "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and "Lawrence of Arabia" -- it's because there's simply not enough dramatic variety, no relief from the relentless grind of putting one foot in front of the other.

Weir must have sensed this, too: The last stage of the odyssey, a trek through the Himalayas, is tossed off in a couple of minutes, as if it were a stroll in the park. Most audiences will appreciate that brevity, I fancy, even if readers of Rawicz's memoir will miss the mention of two mysterious yeti-like creatures. Perhaps they'll make it to the director's cut?

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‘The Way Back’ movie review: Ed Harris, Colin Farrell escape a Siberian gulag

April 6, 2011
★★★½ , Movie Reviews

You can’t ask much more from a film: Peter Weir’s The Way Back is a great story, well-told, presenting a grueling experience in a respectable but palatable manner. It’s the story of prisoners in a Siberian gulag during WWII, their daring escape, and the hardships they face during an incredible 4,000 mile walk to India and eventual freedom. That may not sound like your cup of tea, but I imagine just about all audiences will be able to appreciate this film.

Jim Sturgess stars as Janusz, a Polish man accused of espionage by the Soviet forces in control of Eastern Poland during WWII. He refuses to admit guilt, but his wife is tortured and eventually confesses against him, and soon Janusz is off to the gulag.

There, in desperate conditions that see many of the prisoners in states of near-death, he meets a man named Khabarov (Mark Strong) who claims to plan of escape that involves a long walk south to Mongolia. Along with a small group of international prisoners that include Russian bandit Valta (Colin Farrell) and an American who gives his name as Mister Smith (Ed Harris), Janusz manages to break free.

Of course, getting out of the gulag is only the beginning of their ordeal: they have a long journey ahead of them, and it’s even longer than they imagine. Along the way, they meet a fellow escapee, a young Polish girl (Saoirse Ronan) who says her parents were murdered in Warsaw. Through snowy tundra’s, vast empty Russian landscapes, the Gobi desert, and the Himalayas, the group’s numbers dwindle.

Given the story, The Way Back isn’t nearly as grueling an experience as I expected. It’s not so much of a specific survival story (survivalists may scoff at some of the luck the group encounters, like finding a well in the middle of the desert) as a tale of human spirit and the desire for freedom. It helps that the film is so beautifully shot by Russell Boyd, who was also behind the haunting imagery of Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock 35 years ago.

The cast is excellent: there’s always a danger when you have well-known English-speaking actors portraying heavily-accented non-English speakers, but both Sturgess and (especially) Farrell are fine (side note: from the range of nationalities portrayed in the main cast, only Harris plays a character of the same extraction as the actor). I was also particularly impressed with Dragos Bucur as Zoran, a Yugoslav businessman, and Gustaf Skarsgård as Voss, a Latvian priest.

The one element that rang false for me is the final sequence, set after the fall of communism in Poland. It’s an unnecessary scene that also feels improbable and illogical – a too-easy emotional tug to wrap things up that feels disconnected from the rest of the film.

I had one other concern. Watching what I had assumed to be an entirely true story, I was awaiting some end title scrawl that would let us know what happened to these characters. Nothing.

The Way Back is only loosely based on Slavomir Rawicz’s popular novel The Long Walk , which has supposedly been debunked in recent years; at least, records indicate that Rawicz himself didn’t undertake the journey. With evidence that some men did, however, Weir decided to adapt the novel anyway .

It was the right decision: The Way Back is a fascinating story, fictional or not. Still, I would have appreciated the chance to learn more about these characters.

2011 , Alexandru Potocean , Colin Farrell , Dragos Bucur , Ed Harris , Gustaf Skarsgård , Jim Sturgess , Keith R. Clarke , Mark Strong , Peter Weir , Saoirse Ronan , Sebastian Urzendowsky , Slavomir Rawicz , The Way Back

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The Way Back (I) (2010)

User Reviews
The government in communistic or extreme socialistic states is a cold, uncaring, demonic machine that will immediately squelch dissidents through any measure possible, including torturous coercion, slander and execution.
Such godless governments are a vile social infection that spreads and must be escaped at all costs.
Is this socialistic disease now spreading to America? Of course it is and it's been obvious for quite some time (the Dems).
Better to die free than live in a gulag (aka labor camp or reeducation camp) or under dictatorial socialistic governments.
No matter how bad it is, at least you don't have to live in a gulag.
Mongolians and Tibetans are people of true honor.
Saoirse Ronan is a precious young lady.

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Ed Harris Exclusive Video Interview THE WAY BACK

Ed Harris Interview THE WAY BACK. Watch an interview with Ed Harris for Peter Weir's film THE WAY BACK which also stars Colin Farrell & Jim Sturgess

Opening this weekend is The Way Back and it's the first film from director Peter Weir ( Witness , Master And Commander , & Dead Poetâ€™s Society ) in seven years.Â Starring Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Mark Strong, Jim Sturgess, and Saoirse Ronan, the film is inspired by the true story of a group of "multi-national prisoners from a Siberian gulag in 1940 and their epic life affirming journey over thousands of miles across five hostile countries."Â The film is based on Slavomir Rawiczâ€™s acclaimed book, The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom, as well as other real life accounts.Â You can watch seven clips from the film here .Â Anyway, I recently got to speak with most of the cast and Peter Weir and I'll be posting a new interview everyday this week.Â Yesterday I posted Jim Sturgess , and today I've got Ed Harris.During my time with Harris we talked about what being on CHiPs (yes, the Erik Estrada show from the '70's) did for his career, how did he get involved in The Way Back , how does Peter Weir get such great performances from all his actors, and is he thinking about directing another movie soon.Â Hit the jump for the video: Ed Harris

What was it about ChiPs that led him to where he is today
How did he get involved in The Way Back
How does Peter Weir get such great performances
Any plans to direct another movie soon. Says he has been reading scripts but only wants to make a movie when he feels compelled to make oneâ€¦

THE WAY BACK

"a powerful, unforgettable journey to freedom".

What You Need To Know:

(CCC, BBB, ACACAC, PPP, Pa, L, VV, S, N, D, M) Very strong Christian, moral, Anti-Communist worldview about seven men escaping from a Soviet/Stalinist gulag to freedom and meeting a teenage Polish girl who travels with them for awhile, with very strong conservative values and lots of very strong Pro-Christian content, though not all the men are Christian or thoroughly so, but the movie’s last scene has a prominent cross displayed, which links the movie’s moral points about liberty to Jesus Christ and Christianity, plus Buddhist monk visits escaped prisoners in Tibet; five obscenities (including two “f” words) and man says, “I swear to God,” plus an image of lice on top of snow, man eats bug and men eat snake; strong violence includes prisoner and his wife interrogated by Communists have marks of being beaten on their faces, convict in Siberian prison stabs another man in stomach to take his sweater, prison guards threaten prisoners, man freezes to death, escaped prisoners find dead elk trapped in mud, priest comes across Buddhist temple destroyed by Communists and he recalls how Communists destroyed his church and he killed a lone guard that night at the church, massive sandstorm overtakes travelers, travelers show ravages of dying of thirst and sunstroke (including swollen feet) while trekking through huge desert, man sneaking through farms comes back with dead sheep and blood on his sweater; no sex but prisoners in Siberian gulag look at drawings of nude women and man makes a lewd reference; upper female nudity on paper as prisoners look at nude drawings; no alcohol use; smoking; and, lying, prisoner defends tattoos of Lenin and Stalin on his chest while saying Stalin is “Man of Steel” even though Stalin put him in Siberian prison because of his activity as a Russian gang member, stealing.

More Detail:

THE WAY BACK is inspired by a true story about seven men who escaped Stalin’s Soviet prison gulag in Siberia. Though it fictionalizes and changes parts of the real story, this is one of the best, most riveting, most inspiring, most powerful, and most important movies of the year. Despite some rough content, the heart of the movie is highly moral and uplifting as well as Christian and spiritually uplifting. As such, it deserves to be seen by as many people as possible.

The movie opens in 1940 Russia with the wife of a Polish army man named Janusz betraying him after Soviet Communist thugs beat a confession against him out of her. The Communists stick Janusz in a freezing Siberian prison created by the old Russian tsars but expanded by the vicious Communist dictators Lenin and Stalin.

There, Janusz discovers a possible way out of the prison camp from a prisoner who used to be an actor. The Communists imprisoned the actor after he merely played an aristocrat in a movie!

The actor is a talker, not a doer, however. So, after saving some food and clothing, Janusz walks out of the prison in an intense snowstorm. Janusz is an excellent woodsman. He desperately wants to find his wife so he can forgive her and free her from Communist tyranny.

Janusz teams up with a mysterious American calling himself Mr. Smith and a violent Russian criminal, who has a knife with which he stabbed another prisoner. They follow Janusz as he leads the way out of the camp. The three men are astonished to find four other men following them out of the prison and into the woods.

Sadly, the youngest man, suffering from blindness because of poor nutrition, dies when he gets lost in the forest while searching for wood. In the morning, the other men find him just yards away, frozen to death.

The six remaining men make their way south to a large lake adjacent to the Trans-Siberian railroad that marks the Soviet border. What happens when they cross the border, pick up a teenage Polish girl also escaped from the Communists and walk thousands of miles through China makes for an absolutely riveting, at times heartbreaking but ultimately triumphant and redemptive story, one of the best movies you may see this year, or any other year, for that matter.

THE WAY BACK is brilliantly, forcefully, deftly directed by Peter Weir, director of such classics as THE LAST WAVE, WITNESS (No. 57 on Movieguide®’s Top 100 List), THE TRUMAN SHOW (Movieguide® winner), MASTER AND COMMANDER (Movieguide® winner), and GALLIPOLI. It’s also superbly acted by the whole cast, including veteran Ed Harris as the American, relative newcomer Jim Sturgess as Janusz, Colin Farrell as the Russian criminal, and young Saoirse Ronan as the teenage girl the men help, who becomes like a daughter to the American.

THE WAY BACK has a very strong Anti-Communist worldview that’s rooted in the overt Christian faith of most of the men. In fact, one of the men is a priest who suffers guilt because, out of revenge, he killed a young Communist guard one night at his church, which the Communists had brutally destroyed. Throughout the long journey, including the last scene, however, there are multiple, positive references to Jesus Christ and Christianity. There are also many heartwarming scenes of deep human compassion, despite some rough content showing the harsh conditions the men face, strong foul language and images of people dead, dying or almost dying. Finally, the movie skillfully uses newsreel footage of Soviet Communist oppression to give historical context to the story. With this movie, Weir clearly proves he truly is one of the greatest movie directors we currently have.

All in all, THE WAY BACK is a powerful, soul-stirring, penetrating, sweeping, visceral, inspiring, astonishing, unforgettable, and shimmering work of art. It would be almost impossible not to be extremely moved and uplifted by this impressive movie and astonishing journey. Unless, of course, you like Communism and dislike Christian liberty.

Be that as it may, the movie does contain five obscenities, including two “f” words. Also, two scenes show prisoners looking at drawings of nude women, and one convict belonging to a Russian gang makes a lewd reference. Finally, there are images of violence and of people dead, dying or almost dying, but nothing really graphic.

Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.

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Without Senators in Sight, Christine Blasey Ford Retells Her Story

Her lucid memoir, “One Way Back,” describes life before, during and after she testified that Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her in high school.

A color photograph of Christine Blasey Ford shows a middle-aged woman with shoulder-length blonde hair, wearing a blue blouse and sitting on a sofa, the arm of which is covered by a multicolored knitted quilt.

By Alexandra Jacobs

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ONE WAY BACK: A Memoir, by Christine Blasey Ford

“Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter.”

It sounded like a piece of refrigerator poetry suddenly ringing out in the wood-paneled Hart Senate Office Building: Christine Blasey Ford’s distinctive phrase describing her memory of being assaulted at 15 by Brett Kavanaugh, two years older, while his friend watched. (Kavanaugh, seeking confirmation to the Supreme Court, less poetically but “ categorically and unequivocally ” denied he had done any such thing, brandishing old calendars as an alibi.)

Published more than five years after her 2018 congressional testimony, Blasey Ford’s new memoir, “One Way Back,” is an important entry into the public record — a lucid if belated retort to Senator Chuck Grassley’s 414-page, maddening memo on the investigation — but a prosaic one. A Big Book like this has become the final step in the dizzying if wearily familiar passage through the American media wringer: once called a “ spin cycle ,” now more like a clown car going through the wash tunnel.

Blasey Ford is a research psychologist, professor and devotee of surfing, who leans heavily on the sport as a metaphor for her ordeal. “You made me paddle out,” she tells her lawyers at one point, when they are advising her not to testify after weeks of preparation. “And you never, ever paddle back in once you’re out there. You catch the wave. You wipe out if you have to.”

She explains the difference between a beach break (“a quick, rough ride”) and a point break (“slow, unfurling”), and offers deep thoughts on kelp, the marine organism that can be both nuisance and nurturer to humans in the swells. (“The same thing that can move you back can also move you forward. I’d just have to hope for high tide.”) Coloring the underside of her hair blue to mark summer vacations from her teaching job, Blasey Ford even unwittingly presaged mermaidcore .

“One Way Back” — that is, to some sort of shore — is a story of swimming away from the Eastern power establishment and then being sucked inexorably anew into its undertow. Living in country-clubbish suburban Washington, D.C., but lacking college degrees, Blasey Ford’s parents vowed to give their three children premium educations.

Christine, the youngest, attended the all-girls Holton-Arms in Bethesda, in social circles concentric with Kavanaugh, a student at the all-boys Georgetown Prep. She enjoyed reading “The Great Gatsby” as commentary on her circumstances, but even more “Mutiny on the Bounty,” which vividly rendered escape from a clear social hierarchy.

It was, she writes, “the height of an early ’80s John Hughes era that glamorized a hypersexualized, debauched high school party scene as depicted in movies like ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘Sixteen Candles,’” and it was in such a boys-will-be-boys milieu that she tells of being attacked, with no apparent avenue for recourse.

The assailant’s suffocating hand over her mouth, attempting to mute her screams, is one terrible detail that lingers; along with the bathing suit under her clothes that impeded their forcible removal. “Perhaps it’s kind of like my armor,” she writes of continuing to layer like this in her adult summers.

Blasey Ford never wavers from her certainty that it was the young Kavanaugh looming over her in that room, but she doesn’t seem hellbent on bringing him down. As she mulled going public, “If he’d come to me, really leveled with me, and said, ‘I don’t remember this happening, but it might have, and I’m so sorry,’ it might have been a significant, therapeutic moment for survivors in general,” she writes. “I might have wobbled a bit. I might have thought, ‘You know, he was a jackass in high school, but now he’s not.’”

Reading this narrative crowded with “teams” — high-powered lawyers, politicians, public-relations people and, yes, journalists, including a couple from this news organization — one indeed longs for and is denied such a quiet, human, adult scene of confrontation and forgiveness. (One also longs for more about Mark Judge, the buddy of Kavanaugh’s who Blasey Ford said was in the room that fateful night; he remained elusive in the proceedings despite talk of a subpoena, publishing “The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi” in 2022.)

Instead, we got a noisy, sped-up sequel to the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas saga , with a similar conclusion: a man on the Supreme Court changing the law of the land, a woman from his past consigned to historical footnote.

Blasey Ford suffered from her testimony, forced to sequester in hotel rooms with her family, guarded by expensive security. After it’s over, there’s prolonged PTSD: hunkering down under a fuzzy gray blanket, unable for a while to return to her regular professional life. (“Twenty-five years does a lot,” Hill tells her, about getting back to normal.)

“It felt like a sentencing,” Blasey Ford writes of her moment in the floodlights. “I suppose this book is my way of breaking free,” she muses — yet the publicity for it will, of course, invite more abuse.

There are some perks from being in the public eye. Blasey Ford is served bisque by Laurene Powell Jobs, sleeps over at Oprah Winfrey’s house, goes backstage at a Metallica concert. Her sons get the actual shirt off Steph Curry’s back at a Golden State Warriors game.

Vicious and violent hate mail is outweighed by letters from supporters and fellow survivors, and Blasey Ford expects to donate them, piling up on her dining room table, to an archive or museum. She used to dive at the pool; now she has a figurative platform, to use when she chooses. There are grants in her name at prestigious institutions.

Blasey Ford is incredibly forgiving of her old-school Republican father, who seems to value propriety — including, ouch, cordially emailing Kavanaugh’s dad after the confirmation — over defending his daughter’s experience. She slips in, double ouch, that her older brothers haven’t been much in touch since this all happened.

Though her signature phrase was mined for a McSweeney’s anthology of #MeToo writings , Blasey Ford is not a poet, after all, but a scientist, and the mess of fact and fiction about her case rankled on a cellular level. “I could see it, the riptide where the truth and narrative were mixing, creating a building current,” she writes, persisting with the ocean conceit. “Overnight, the small but noticeable divide between truth and news turned into a gulf.”

To her credit, you never really feel you’re drowning, reading “One Way Back.” But boy do you long for a nice hot shower afterward.

ONE WAY BACK : A Memoir | By Christine Blasey Ford | St. Martin’s | 298 pp. | $29

Alexandra Jacobs is a Times book critic and occasional features writer. She joined The Times in 2010. More about Alexandra Jacobs

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The Way Back
The Way Back Photos Saoirse Ronan as Irina in "The Way Back." A scene from the film "The Way Back." (Right) Colin Farrell as Valka in "The Way Back." Ed Harris as Mr. Smith in "The Way Back."
The Way Back movie review & film summary (2011)
Powered by JustWatch. Not every incredible story makes a compelling movie. "The Way Back" is inspired by a 4,000-mile foot journey that began with an escape from a Siberian prison camp in the dead of winter and continued across Mongolia and the Gobi Desert, ending finally months later in free India. At every moment this is astonishing.
The Way Back (2010)
The Way Back: Directed by Peter Weir. With Dragos Bucur, Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Alexandru Potocean. Siberian gulag escapees travel four thousand miles by foot to freedom in India.
'The Way Back,' by Peter Weir, About Gulag Escapees
Movie Review | 'The Way Back' ... Mr. Smith (Ed Harris, terse, tense and very Ed Harris), who warns of the dangers of kindness, Janusz settles into the prisoner's routine. He harvests wood and ...
The Way Back (2010 film)
The Way Back is a 2010 American survival film directed by Peter Weir, from a screenplay by Weir and Keith Clarke.The film is inspired by The Long Walk (1956), the memoir by former Polish prisoner of war Sławomir Rawicz, who claimed to have escaped from a Soviet Gulag and walked 4,000 miles (6,400 km) to freedom in World War II. The film stars Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, and ...
The Way Back
The Way Back - review. ... Recognising all this, Weir has chosen to speak of The Long Walk as "the Slavomir Rawicz novel" and has given the movie's most intriguing role to Ed Harris, ...
Movie reviews
Movie reviews - 'The Way Back' ... Colin Farrell (left) and Ed Harris star in director Peter Weir's survival epic, ... The Way Back is based on The Long Walk, a bestselling 1950s memoir by Polish ...
Movie review: 'The Way Back'
Movie review: 'The Way Back' ... Best of all is Ed Harris, playing a reserved American engineer named Smith, and not just because Weir can explore the weathered crags of his face as if they ...
The Way Back
Running time: 133 MIN. With: With: Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, Alexandru Potocean, Sebastian Urzendowsky, Gustaf Skarsgard, Dragos Bucur, Saoirse Ronan, Mark Strong. (English, Russian ...
THE WAY BACK Review
THE WAY BACK Review. By Bill Graham. Published Jan 22, 2011. THE WAY BACK Review. Directed by Peter Weir, THE WAY BACK stars Colin Ferrell, Saoirse Ronan, Jim Sturgess, Mark Strong, and Ed Harris ...
The Way Back
Later, when the artist makes a sketch of one of his haggard fellow escapers, the subject looks at his portrait and wonderingly says that it looks just like his father. Again, a nice touch. The Way ...
The Way Back: movie review
The Way Back: movie review. Peter Weir's 'The Way back' is a harrowing escape story of a gulag survivor. Colin Farrell plays a Russian mobster sharing prison time with a Polish soldier who ...
The Way Back (2011) Starring: Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Colin Farrell
Movie Review The Way Back Their escape was just the beginning. US Release Date: 01-21-2011. Directed by: ... Colin Farrell and Ed Harris on their way back. Peter Weir ... In the movie a group of five political prisoners from the recently invaded Poland escape along with an old-timer American (Ed Harris) generically called Mr. Smith, and a ...
The Way Back Movie Review
Directed by six-time Academy Award (R) nominee Peter Weir, THE WAY BACK is an epic story of survival, solidarity and indomitable human will. Shot in Bulgaria, Morocco and India, the film stars Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe, The Other Boleyn Girl), Ed Harris (Appaloosa) and Colin Farrell (In Bruges) as prisoners of a Soviet Union labor camp, who, along with four others, flee their Siberian ...
THE WAY BACK
Inspired by their story, THE WAY BACK is a magnificent and powerful fictional account of seven of them. Janusz is a young officer in the Polish army. Eager and affable, he is taken prisoner by the Soviets under the most heinous and threatening of emotional circumstances. On capture, all prisoners were taken to the Siberian gulags where the ...
Review: 'The Way Back' is a long walk
Review: 'The Way Back' is a long walk. ... "The Way Back" is the first Peter Weir movie since 2003; ... (Ed Harris), is convinced that they will perish in the mines within months. Valka, a Russian ...
Film Review: THE WAY BACK (2010): Peter Weir, Ed Harris
The Way Back (2010) Film Review, a movie directed by Peter Weir and starring Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell, and Saoirse Ronan.. The ever brilliant writer/director, Peter Weir, best known ...
'The Way Back' movie review: Ed Harris, Colin Farrell escape a Siberian
April 6, 2011. ★★★½, Movie Reviews. You can't ask much more from a film: Peter Weir's The Way Back is a great story, well-told, presenting a grueling experience in a respectable but palatable manner. It's the story of prisoners in a Siberian gulag during WWII, their daring escape, and the hardships they face during an incredible ...
The Way Back (2010)
10/10. Peter Weir goes from ocean to desert. doubleo 16 November 2010. Peter Weir's follow-up to Master & Commander (2003) is the unflinching, stark, & brilliant The Way Back, which takes on the weighty theme of man's struggle for freedom. At the dawn of WWII, several men escape from a Russian gulag.
Ed Harris Interview THE WAY BACK
By Steve Weintraub. Published Jan 19, 2011. Ed Harris Interview THE WAY BACK. Watch an interview with Ed Harris for Peter Weir's film THE WAY BACK which also stars Colin Farrell & Jim Sturgess ...
THE WAY BACK
THE WAY BACK is one of the best movies ever. It tells the story of how seven men during World War II dared to escape from a Siberian prison camp run by the brutal Soviet Communists. Leading the men is a former Polish officer who was betrayed by his wife after the Communists beat her. Included among them is a mysterious American and a Christian ...
The Independent Critic
The Independent Critic offers movie reviews, interviews, and festival coverage from award-winning writer and film journalist Richard Propes. ... Mr. Smith (Ed Harris), a soft-spoken American and an actor (Mark Strong). Along the way, and it goes without saying that not all who escape will survive, the men encounter a young wayward girl (Saiorse ...
The Way Back (2010) Movie
movie. ratings. (534) Cast Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess, Saoirse Ronan, Colin Farrell, Mark Strong. Director Peter Weir. Producers Duncan Henderson, Joni Levin. Four-time Oscar nominee Ed Harris (Apollo 13), Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe) and Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) and Colin Farrell (In Bruges) star in this epic saga of survival ...
Book Review: 'One Way Back,' by Christine Blasey Ford
Published more than five years after her 2018 congressional testimony, Blasey Ford's new memoir, "One Way Back," is an important entry into the public record — a lucid if belated retort to ...

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not that much emotionally involving but very epic like slow paced movie.

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