Making a movie about survival is tricky insomuch as, generally speaking, the writer, director, and cast have little frame of reference from which to draw the logical course of action for dealing with a pack of hungry wolves in the Alaskan wilderness. Perhaps our repeat viewings of Man vs. Wild suggest a rudimentary knowledge for survival, but it’s probably best to remember that Gryllis is former British Special Forces, not an amateur armchair survivor. It’s for this reason that films in this “man against nature” genre often veer into the realm of ridiculousness and succumb to hyperbolized reactions. While The Grey dances on the perimeter of ridiculousness and, at times seems to pander to the audience’s emotions in order to provide roundness to some rather flat characters, there is a balance that keeps it from becoming the latest version of Alive, Frozen, Thirst, Stuck, Open Water 2, or The Reef.
Ottway (Liam Neeson) is one of seven survivors of a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness. A man who doesn’t “know why I do the things I do” and who “can’t get [his wife] back,” Ottway is at the end of his fraying tether. He’s a dissimilar widget among dozens of reprobates and loose cannons working for an oil company. It’s unclear what some of the men do; there are random references to drills, rigs, and drinking, but it’s clear that Ottway is a sniper of wolves, protecting the men as they work. His demeanor and his intelligence sets him apart from most of the men; he prefers silence to chatter; he’s rational in the face of tragedy; we know a bit more of a his backstory, but, by design, not enough to know whether we should sympathize with him or for him. The first five minutes of The Grey set the tone, and, like the rest of the film, are beautifully shot through a nebulous filter. Colors are occluded by the grays and whites of the landscape, and the soundtrack mostly consists of the whipping wind, clanging beer bottles, and cigarette-smoke-choked laughter of those who “work on the drill and get drunk at night.” One minor inclusion to the opening scenes is a voiceover that creates a touch of ambiguity around Ottway. Is he an alcoholic mess whose wife left him? Or, has she died and unintentionally set him on such a descent?
Then, there’s a plane crash, and we’re left to hover over and around disparate personalities who are forced to face their own mortalities as a group and as individuals, wondering when and how they will perish. Despite the hypothermic environment and the lack of sustenance, the most threatening death arrives via wolf. There is a brief expository conversation about how “wolves are supposed to be afraid of people,” but, as Ottway informs us, “not when we’re in their den; then, they’re not afraid of anything.” Here, a number of films might jump into the whole “greedy oil company gets its comeuppance” tale, but The Grey does not. Instead, it really tries to keep the focus on survival and the perils therein – not just physical, but psychological.
For viewers looking for a wolf-friendly buffet, the first few victims sate this hunger: a man on watch steps a few feet away from the wrecked fuselage to urinate and his attacked, despite his holding of a small torch. The next day, the remaining six venture South to what might be safety, and the final refugee in line becomes a midday snack as the other five are relegated to onlookers.
But then, the wolves stop killing. They attack and the audience jumps, but The Grey reminds us that wolves are not nature’s only threat. They’re a source of fear, but not to be outdone by the cold, the altitude, human error, or gravity. This is not a tale of triumph, and, like an unfired gun that has been introduced, one of the survivors, John Diaz, finds a GPS watch with a homing beacon, but this accessory is futile straight through to the end. This film is not built to provide false hope; rather, it’s built to sink us into despair and illustrate the precarious state of our own sanity in the face of tragedy.
This is not always something that’s handled well. The fatal flaw in some tales is the comingling of breakdown with insanity, relegating the “wild card” to “villain,” when, truly, they are not one in the same. The Grey does a decent job avoiding this cliché, though some of the scenes feel a bit overacted – however, how many of us have really had a breakdown when facing our own mortality? A prime example is the aforementioned Diaz, whose refusal to admit that he’s scared conjures a brief metaphysical conversation about foolishness and human nature, but this is short lived when one of the “runt” wolves knocks him down as a form of “test” to see what he and the group are made of. Despite Diaz’s earlier attempt to swindle the dead bodies of their billfolds and his current instigation of a fight with Ottway, the other four survivors jump to his aide, killing the wolf with makeshift “bang sticks,” sharpened branches with shotgun shells affixed to the end so that they fire on contact with any lupine assailant. Here, the “wildcard” is still human and a part of the survival party. Like them, he’s scared; he’s just reluctant to show it.
Subsequently, they victoriously skin, cook, and eat the “grisly” wolf that “tastes like shit,” and while doing so, Diaz laboriously decapitates the wolf and tosses it to the rest of the pack. Sure, the echoing response of mourning howls is a bit much, but as Diaz shows pleasure in his small victory, Ottway advises the others to “let him have this,” knowing that this action is for closure, not because he’s become a bloodthirsty sadist. Throughout The Grey, there is a quiet voice of reason – not always Ottway’s – that keeps the scenes in check. Ostensibly, certain scenes seem nothing more that emotionally pandering: Talget’s (Dermot Mulroney) thoughts of his daughter, Ottway’s memory of his father, and Diaz’ (Frank Grillo) regret that the last woman he slept with was a “fifty-six-year old prostitute who was half-Eskimo,” but what else would you talk about when you realize that, more than likely, you’re going to die? Wouldn’t you share you best memories to momentarily obfuscate the life-threatening surroundings? And, wouldn’t someone eventually offer some levity to evoke some laughter before dying? Death is depressing. Fifty-six-year old hookers are funnier.
Overall, The Grey isn’t perfect, and to anyone who goes with the sole intention of seeing how well Neeson and his makeshift, mini-liquor bottle claws fare against a saliva-dripping wolf, I would suggest saving your money. The Grey is much less about man versus nature and more about man versus mortality.
