The Revenant

This film is one of those that hung out in my memory mostly remembered. And this is a film that I wanted to love, but wound up only liking. Alejandro G. Iñárritu does a wonderful job with the direction, blending wonderful (yet stark) vistas while treating memories with magical realism. DiCaprio and Hardy both gave strong performances such that their actions were easily understandable, even when Hardy's Fitzgerald was being an unlikeable bastard. The sound department, though, kept stealing the show, using surround sound to set a dense soundscape and creating a brutally immersive experience.

The bits that kept me from loving the film are two fold. The first being the pacing. The film seems to surge at some points and languish at others. Not in that sense of tone poetry that could establish setting and mood, but just in a way that felt like it hampered the film and stretched it out. The second part, was just the plot felt overly simple in such a way that none of the characters seemed to experience meaningful growth or change. Glass lost a son and suffered a great deal, but aside from loss, he felt like the same character at the end of the film as the start.

Still, a solid snow day film.