The Way Back (2010 film)

During World War II, after the Soviet invasion of Poland, young Polish army officer Janusz Wieszczek (Jim Sturgess) is held as a POW and interrogated by the NKVD. The Soviets, unable to get him to admit that he is a spy, take his wife into custody; from her they extort a statement condemning him. He is sentenced to 20 years in a Gulag labour camp deep in Siberia.

There he meets those with whom he later plans an escape: Mr. Smith (Ed Harris), an American engineer; Khabarov (Mark Strong), an actor; Valka (Colin Farrell), a hardened Russian criminal; Tomasz (Alexandru Potocean), a Polish artist; Voss (Gustaf Skarsgård), a Latvian priest; Kazik (Sebastian Urzendowsky), a Pole suffering from night blindness; and Zoran (Dragoș Bucur), a Yugoslav accountant. Khabarov secretly tells Janusz that he is planning to escape south to Mongolia, passing Lake Baikal. Smith cautions Janusz that it is Khabarov's way to discuss escape plans with newcomers, to maintain his morale, but nothing will come of it. At times Janusz seems to hallucinate the front door of a country home and adjoining window ledge, which holds plants and a rock he attempts to reach for. Janusz follows through with the escape with Smith, Valka, Voss, Tomasz, Zoran and Kazik during a severe snowstorm that covers their tracks.

Kazik freezes to death the second night of the trek, after losing his way back to the campsite while looking for wood, and the group buries him. After many days of travelling across the snows of Siberia, the group reaches Lake Baikal. There they meet Irena (Saoirse Ronan), a young Polish girl, who tells them that Russian soldiers murdered her parents and sent her to a collective farm near Warsaw, where they treated her cruelly, so she escaped. Smith realises the inaccuracies in her story, as Warsaw is occupied by the Germans; nevertheless, despite his misgivings that she'll slow them down and tax their meager food supply, he agrees with the group to let her in. Smith eventually cautions her about the lie and says he will not tolerate any more, in response to which she admits that her parents were communists but the communist rulers killed them anyway and sent her to an orphanage.

When the group reaches an unpatrolled border between the Soviet Union and Mongolia, Valka, who idolizes Joseph Stalin and does not know what he would do elsewhere, decides to stay. The rest continue to Ulaanbaatar, but soon they see images of Stalin, Khorloogiin Choibalsan and a red star. Janusz realises that Mongolia is under communist control and since China is at war with Japan, tells the group they should take refuge in British India. As they continue south across the Gobi Desert, lack of water, sandstorms, sunburn, blisters and sunstroke weaken the group. Irena collapses several times and soon dies. A few days later Tomasz collapses and dies. Smith is on the verge of death, but after being motivated by Janusz, Zoran and Voss, decides to rejoin the group and the severely dehydrated four find a much-needed water source. Soon after, they reach China by passing through the Great Wall.

As they reach the Himalayas, all of them on the verge of death, they are rescued by a Tibetan monk who takes them to a Buddhist monastery where they regain their strength. Smith decides to go to Lhasa with the help of one of the monk's contacts, who will smuggle him out through China. Once there, he anticipates he will be able to connect with the US military, his return to America ensured. The remaining three continue to trek through the Himalayas and soon reach Sikkim (India, previously Nepal) and get assistance from villagers. The Indian government helps them reach their home peacefully.

At the end of the film, Janusz keeps walking around the world until 1989, when the communist regime in Poland is ousted from power. The final scene of the film shows Janusz, 50 years after being taken captive, again envisioning the door and reaching for the rock; this time he takes a key hidden beneath the rock to open the door and reconcile with his wife.

• Jim Sturgess as Janusz Wieszczek, a young Polish inmate made a prisoner of war during the Soviet invasion of Poland
• Ed Harris as Mr. Smith, an American inmate and former engineer
• Saoirse Ronan as Irena Zielińska, an orphaned teenage Polish girl trying to escape from the Soviet Union, who meets up with the fugitives near Lake Baikal
• Colin Farrell as Valka, a tough Russian inmate and gambler whose most prized possession is a knife he calls "Wolf"
• Dragoș Bucur as Zoran, a Yugoslavian inmate who used to be an accountant and is considered a funny man
• Alexandru Potocean as Tomasz Horodinsky, a Polish inmate and former pastry chef who dreams of becoming an artist
• Gustaf Skarsgård as Andrejs Voss, a Latvian inmate and former priest
• Sebastian Urzendowsky as Kazik, a young Polish inmate suffering from night blindness
• Mark Strong as Andrei Timofeyevich Khabarov, a Russian inmate and actor who was imprisoned when the play he was in was deemed subversive by Soviet authorities

The Way Back received generally positive reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports a 74% approval rating based on 139 reviews, with an average rating of 6.88/10. The critics consensus is: "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."[15] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100 based on 33 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[16] Empire awarded the film three out of five stars and wrote, "It's good, but from this director we have come to expect great."[17] The Guardian awarded it three out of five and wrote, "Weir has put together a good film – oddly, though, considering its scale, it feels like a rather small one."[18] The Telegraph called the film "A journey that feels awful and heroic and unfathomable – and one you’ll want to watch again."[19]

The soundtrack to The Way Back was released on January 18, 2010.[20]

• As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me, 2001 film about a German World War II prisoner of war escaping from a Siberian Gulag to the Iranian border
• Gulag, 1985 film depicting a gulag escape and arduous journey to freedom

• Willis, Linda (2010). Looking for Mr. Smith: The Quest for the Truth Behind The Long Walk, the Greatest Survival Story Ever Told. Skyhorse Publishing.
• Strandberg, Mikael et al. "The Long Walk Articles".CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link) This is an excellent collection of articles relating to the movie The Way Back, the book upon which it was based The Long Walk, Linda Willis' Looking For Mr. Smith, and related materials.
• StRIX (Peter Fleming) (12 July 1956). "The Long Bow". The Spectator. p. 13. An interesting contemporary discussion of Rawicz's book by a noted explorer.
• Shalamov, Varlam (1980). Kolyma Tales. Penguin Books.

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