The Revenant

Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu struck Oscar gold last year with Birdman, the fictional story of an actor's mental breakdown. He's mining again this year with The Revenant, the true story of frontiersman Hugh Glass.

In 1823, Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is part of a hunting party of fur trappers. An Arikara War Party is on their trail, suspecting them of abducting their chief's daughter. Morality and supplies are low on Glass's party after an Arikara attack. Captain Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) orders the party back to base. John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), a party member in it for the money, opposes the plan. He especially doesn't like Glass and his half-Pawnee son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck).

Glass soon picks the wrong Grizzly cubs to aim a rifle at. Their very angry mother rips him up before he kills her. Broken and bruised, he's left into the care of Fitzgerald, Hawk and Jim Bridger (Will Poulter) while the others go on ahead. Fitzgerald gets tired of waiting for Glass to naturally expire, so he decides to ditch him. When Hawk protests the plan, Fitzgerald kills him.

But Glass is very much alive. By shear force of will, he drags himself across the wilderness in search of Fitzgerald. It's not an easy process for him or the viewer.

The film relies on its visuals more than dialogue. Those visuals come courtesy of Emmanuel Lubezki, Oscar's reigning champ for cinematography for the last two years (and with this, possibly three). The wilderness is cold, bleak, and magnificent at the same time. The natural lighting does wonders to convey the film's dark mood. Lubezki's stock-in-trade long takes make the action scenes brutal and shocking.

The Grizzly attack is the primary reason why it has an Oscar nomination for visual effects, so let's give it a paragraph. A CGI bear inflecting realistic wounds on a real actor. Mama Bear's breath showing on camera. And for a final disgrace, Mama landing on Glass after both tumble down a hill. The whole scene lasts for about four minutes but you won't forget every bit.

The sound experience works too. The Oscar-nominated sound design adds to the movie's brutality. The opening Arikara attack, at one point, fades down the voices and sound effects to let Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto's haunting score take center stage. The Grizzly attack is punctuated by vicious thuds, roars and screams. And the aftermath of that scene? Mama's cubs moan for their dead Mama and we feel sad,

And what of the acting? DiCaprio makes for a convincing frontiersman. His body and spirit are broken, but he still soldiers on. Even when he gets his revenge, the last scene focuses on his eyes, as if he's wearily asking "now what?" Fitzgerald establishes himself from the beginning as a brutish, bigoted, greedy snake. As portrayed by Hardy, he's so easy to hate before he betrays Glass. And while Bridger had a hand in the desertion, he did so reluctantly and was remorseful, and he earns the audience's sympathy. Meanwhile, Captain Henry endears himself to the audience as the most upstanding man in the movie.

The Revenant's 156 minutes make it a tough sit on principle. You'll see blood and guts fly with non-stylized grace. It will disgust some and keep others away at an arm's pace. For better or worse, the imagery will stick with you long after the long movie ends. Its story is stretched out in places, I can tell, but its individual scenes kept me invested. Don't expect a simple walk in the woods. It's a dark epic movie, but an epic movie nonetheless.