Fight for survival in harsh wilderness

A LITTLE movie unfolding on an incongruously large stage, adapted from a short story with a long tale to tell.

With such an unorthodox production scale and scripting pedigree, Walking Out is no ordinary screen experience.

The film’s spectacular, deceptively seductive setting is a remote mountain range in Montana, known to what few locals that dare live there as The Crazies.

Fifteen-year-old David (Josh Wiggins) has made a reluctant annual pilgrimage to the region. Most of the year he lives with his mother in the big smoke. Then for a few short weeks, he is bundled off to the backblocks of Montana to bond with a father he has never properly gotten to know.

Back story is close to nonexistent in Walking Out, so the reason why David’s father, Cal (Matt Bomer) is living off the land as a virtual hermit is never really addressed.

What will ultimately matter is whether the pair can find a way to survive a sudden ordeal when a day’s hunting goes horribly awry.

Both Cal and David have sustained serious injuries after happening upon a situation provoked by an unseen, unscrupulous fellow hunter.

Shelter, supplies and warmth are a considerable distance away. The elements will keep turning against Cal and David at every step.

With its spare use of dialogue and a brusque manner in charting the mood swings of nature out on the frontier, Walking Out is not going for all viewers.

But there is a steel in its spine and a glint in its eye that will draw the full attention of those who appreciate these qualities in films such as The Revenant and Wind River.

Walking Out (M) is now showing exclusively at the State Cinema. Rating: