Director: J. A. Bayona
Starring: Enzo Vogrincic, Matías Recalt, Augustín Pardella, Felipe González Otaño, Luciano Chatton, Valentino Alonso, Francisco Romero, Agustín Berruti, Andy Pruss, Simón Hempe, Juan Caruso, Esteban Bigliardi, Rocco Posca, Esteban Kukuriczka, Rafael Federman, Manuela Olivera, Agustín Della Corte, Tomas Wolf
Certificate: 15
Run Time: 144 mins

Society of the Snow is a survival thriller centered around the 1972 Uruguayan Andes plane crash where a commercial plane crashed in the mountains and 16 of the 45 passengers managed to survive over nearly three months by resorting to cannibalism. It’s directed by Spanish filmmakerJ. A. Bayona, behind films such as The Orphanage, The Impossible and A Monster Calls, all of which received heaps of praise. While there’s elements to be admired in all, I do think he’s vastly overrated. In fact, controversially I’ve probably enjoyed Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom the most out of his work, even though the film received mixed reviews, perhaps because I went in with very low expectations and I appreciated the original horror elements.

Bayona’s got experience with the disaster film genre with The Impossible, a film which was set during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Although The Impossible has many tonal issues, Bayona adeptly recaptured the visuals of the tsunami. Surely Society of the Snow is a surefire hit, considering he’s working with particularly riveting material? 

Sadly not. While Society of the Snow has a nail-biting first half-an-hour leading up to the crash, the rest of the film is a misguided mess. The film is strangely overlong and inert of energy for a film about trying to stay alive and Bayona fails to convey the literally chilling atmosphere of the snow-covered mountain. The victim’s clearly aren’t wearing very many layers but at no point in the film do they look desperately cold and by the time we reach the film’s end, they don’t look overly malnourished considering they’ve lived off human flesh for the best part of three months.  Bayona’s depiction of cannibalism fares better though, and it was enough to put me off the thought of eating meat for a couple of days after viewing, even if the human meat looks distinctly like prosciutto ham. 

After retrospectively researching the details of the disaster, how lazy is it that Bayona omits the fact the plane first landed in Mendoza for a stopover due to a storm. The crew decided to wait for meteorological conditions to improve and apparently made a difficult decision to delay the flight initially until gone 14:00. Bayona’s deliberate act to omit the decision between flying or not is very odd, considering it’s the reason why the event unfolded the way it did. 

The cast is composed of Uruguayan and Argentine actors, most of whom are newcomers. While there’s some good performances, such as Enzo Vogrincic as the ill-fated Numa Turcatti,  unfortunately Bayona fails to develop any of them meaningfully. Although there are too many characters to fully visit all of them throughout the 144 minute run time, Bayona would have fared better picking two or three as the audience’s segue into the disaster. 

Bayona reteams with his Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom composer Michael Giacchino, and this is the music maestro’s first foreign language feature. At his best with films such as Up, Inside Out and War for the Planet of the Apes, Giacchino is a very exciting composer but he also has the tendency to phone some of his work in, examples including Jurassic World, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Spider-Man: Homecoming. 

Unfortunately, despite a stirring main theme, Giacchino fails to make much of an impression here with an emotionally manipulative score that like the film, is all over the place. Strangely, Giacchino says Society of the Snow is the most emotional film he’s worked on since Up (has the composer seemingly forgotten that he scored Coco?) but the score just doesn’t really convey the desperation or the desolate atmosphere the passengers find themselves in. 

Despite a near unanimously positive critical and audience reception, Society of the Snow is another disappointing film from J. A. Bayona. The result is an overlong mess that fails to meaningfully develop any of its characters or convey the frosty, cutthroat nature of the increasingly desperate situation and it omits key historical details. Still, there are some bright spots such as a tense and visually arresting first 30 minutes and the cannibalism element of the narrative is ickily executed. But it’s a real shame Society of the Snow isn’t the slam-dunk it could have been, especially given the fascinating details of the real-life event.