The Revenant

Tonight I saw The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy.

Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) is a fur trapper in the early 1800s (and yes, this character is based on a real person and a real incident, though many of the characters are fictional). He's on an expedition along the Missouri River when he's mauled by a grizzly bear. He survives the violent attack, but can barely move. And winter is coming—so instead of the entire group putting themselves in further danger, they offer cash rewards to those willing to stay behind and either nurse him back to health or give him a proper burial when the day comes. Two men, plus the man's son, volunteer for the duty and the rest leave.

After days of no improvement, one of the men, John Fitzgerald (Hardy) gets anxious and wants to put Glass out of his misery. He's not ready to go and his son attempts to save him. Fitzgerald kills the son and convinces the other man to leave Glass for dead. He even takes his gun.

But Hugh doesn't die. His resolve for revenge against Fitzgerald fuels his will to live and the next 2+ hours are spent battling tribes, nature and his own rotting flesh. Just watching him shiver in the snow is enough to put an extra layer on in the theater. In fact, with the exception of the tender moments Hugh shares with his son, the ghost of his son's mother, the ghost of his son and a friend he makes along the way, there's not much about this film that's pleasant.

It's brilliant, though.

From the stunning cinematography to the horrific, so-real-it-makes-you-squirm bear scene to DiCaprio's almost mute performance that somehow exhibits more emotion than anything we've seen on film this year, it's a triumph.

Visceral, painful, frightening, satisfying, terrifying—all of those things. And if Leo doesn't win the Oscar this year, I will lose all faith in the Academy.

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