The Way Back (2010)
Directed by Peter Weir
A small band of multicultural convicts stages a daring escape from a WWII-era Siberian gulag, and embarks on a treacherous journey across five countries in a desperate race for freedom and survival.
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There's been a small surge of filmmakers returning after a long hiatus of late and Australian director Peter Weir ("Witness," "The Truman Show"), whose last film was 2003's "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," is the latest.
" The Way Back ," Peter Weir 's first movie since 2003's " Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World ," premiered way back in September 2010 at the Telluride Film Festival, then opened all over the map -- in Argentina, Norway and England.
The one exception to that iffy list, and a concept that seemed to reawaken writer-director Weir's storytelling flair, was 2003's Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, an adaptation of one of Patrick O'Brian's series of historical seafaring novels.
The Australian director Peter Weir turns in this wartime adventure, following up his excellent Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003).
"The Way Back" is director Peter Weir 's first picture since the stirring "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" (2003), a film that looks better every year.
Some freeze to death, and one man is lost forever, but the final tally is four, excluding the homeless teenage girl they adopt along the way (another performance of honesty and sensitivity by Saoirse Ronan, the extraordinary young actress with the unpronounceable name from Atonement and The Lovely Bones).
The standout is Saoirse Ronan ("Atonement," "The Lovely Bones") as a brave Polish girl whose skip-hop run across the surface of an icy river suggests that one of Rawicz's sources may have been "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
But most affecting is Saoirse Ronan, the young actress from Atonement, as a quietly determined Polish teenager who joins the group along the way.
The touching Saoirse Ronan (“Atonement”) plays Irena, a Polish orphan who joins the trek along the way.
The era is circa World War II, and the characters include Polish prisoner Janusz ( Jim Sturgess ), Russian thug Valka ( Colin Farrell ), American loner Mr. Smith ( Ed Harris ), and young Irena (Atonement's Saoirse Ronan ).
Saoirse Ronan ( Atonement , The Lovely Bones ) plays Irena, a refugee who joins the escapees in the spring and becomes the agent that allows them to bond.
During WWII, Janusz (Jim Sturgess, "Across the Universe," "21") is sent to a Siberian Gulag after his wife was forced to give evidence against him.
His latest film, The Way Back, stars Jim Sturgess (the British actor who is probably most familiar to American moviegoers as the lead in Across the Universe and 21) as a Polish prisoner-of-war captured by the Soviets in the run-up to World War II and sentenced to twenty years in the Siberian Gulag.
Jim Sturgess ( 21 , Fifty Dead Men Walking ) as Janusz, the Polish soldier arrested on trumped-up charges of spying for the Germans, is first among equals in this ensemble cast, but he’s upstaged by the iconic Ed Harris as Mr. Smith, an American engineer working in Moscow who is sent to the labor camp under similar circumstances.
Jim Sturgess ( Across the Universe , 21 ) excels as Janusz, a young Polish prisoner desperate to return home to the wife who betrayed him.