Hide Away

It's a slender story of mourning that manages some lovely bits of mood while also being dreary and a little preposterous in its spareness.

The film stays afloat, if barely, thanks to Elliot Davis's uncluttered camerawork, a surprisingly unsentimental denouement, and performers who deftly undersell the script's corniest pretensions.

Much of the skimpy, waterlogged dialogue in Peter Vanderwall's screenplay is heavy with portent. Excerpts from Homer's "Odyssey" and Longfellow's "Children's Hour" add to the tonnage.

The film doesn't play games; it's basically just Lucas going through a short story-like period of reflection and redemption almost entirely without dialogue. It's not enough, but it is what this underappreciated actor does best.

This is a man-versus-nature parable heavy on the sappy existentialism that's very much of our time. Call it Nicholas Sparks's The Grey.

The movie is plagued with long stretches of dialogue-free contemplation and static shots of nature happening. At only 83 minutes, the film is too slight to feel so padded.

The movie seems to think it's building up massive suspense by not telling us our hero's back story, but given that the wife and kid aren't around and he keeps telling people who ask that he's not divorced, it's obvious they're dead. The only mystery, then, is what exactly happened to them. The answer is: nothing interesting.