Survival Runs In Their Blood.
A callow 14-year-old city boy David (Josh Wiggins) joins his reclusive estranged father Cal (Matt Bomer) for a hunting trip in the snowy wilds of Montana. However, what starts as a rite of passage turns into a grim ordeal when disaster strikes.
Based on a short story by David Quammen, outdoors adventure Walking Out by twin-brother directors Alex and Andrew Smith is an engaging combination of coming-of-age tale and rugged survival drama. As the stakes mount, the duo’s prickly bonding proves more and more affecting, with the relationship gaining extra depth from flashbacks showing Cal’s awkward rapport with his own father (Bill Pullman).
The locations are stunning, too, while the plangent strains of Dido’s Lament by Purcell in a beautiful jazz arrangement by cellist Ernst Reijsger hint at the tale’s surprising mythological underpinnings. The brief allusions are never spelled out, yet as the story develops it becomes clear that the beleaguered protagonists are intended as modern-day versions of Trojan hero Aeneas and his father Anchises.
Certificate 15. Runtime 92 mins. Directors Alex Smith, Andrew Smith
Walking Out available on DVD & Digital from Signature Entertainment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiB0Bit7wGI
