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In 2014, Alejandro González Iñárritu made a huge award season splash with Birdman, a film that won him a trio of Oscars. But instead of sitting back for a while and resting on his laurels, he jumped right into the follow-up, the grueling but gorgeous wilderness adventure The Revenant.
The Revenant ventures into the frontier with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Hugh Glass, an explorer who’s traveling with a group of trappers when he’s attacked by an enormous grizzly bear. Though the team tries to stitch up his wounds and carry him on their journey, they eventually agree to leave three men behind to care for him in his final days before giving him a proper burial. But one of the men, John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), tires of waiting. Left on his own to die, Glass survives and battles back, determined to return to camp to get his revenge.
The Revenant has been the talk of Hollywood all year—and not just because it’s the follow-up to an Oscar winner. Reports of harsh filming conditions, set walk-offs, and the director’s unyielding pursuit of natural lighting suggested that the finished product could either be an enormous disaster or a breathtaking, edge-of-your-seat kind of punch in the gut. And, fortunately for Iñárritu and his fans (and his financers, too), for the most part, it’s the latter.
From the opening scene, The Revenant is a relentless thriller—a truly ferocious and visceral experience. The frontier was a beautiful and deadly place, and the film holds nothing back when it comes to both cinematography and action. The natural settings—the shadowy forests, the rushing rivers, the snow-covered mountains—are simply striking in all of their natural-lit glory. And the action…well, it’ll take your breath away for a very different reason.
Throughout the film, DiCaprio’s Glass—and a number of other characters—battle man, beast, and the elements. They’re the target of arrows, knives, and gunfire. They plunge into icy rivers and find shelter from winter storms. And, of course, there’s that brutal bear scene—a scene that goes on much longer than you’d imagine before taking a short break and then coming back for more.
Through DiCaprio, viewers will experience it all. You’ll feel each blow, each stinging wound, each frost-bitten digit. It’s sometimes excruciating to watch. The story, meanwhile, is simple, with a mix of gripping action and quiet moments, too. At times, in fact, the more peaceful scenes and the strange hallucinations can be somewhat frustrating. But these moments are necessary to allow viewers to catch their breath and relax their tense muscles for a while.
The Revenant is both a painstaking work of art and a savage journey—vicious and violent, beautifully filmed and skillfully acted (especially by DiCaprio and Hardy). It’s definitely not for the faint of heart, but it’s well worth the time and effort.
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