Will this finally be the year? It’s ostensibly become an Internet meme at this point, Leonardo DiCaprio and that gold and elusive Oscar statuette. And whether or not you buy into the whole kerfuffle, the actor has a bona fide contender on his hands with Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s (Birdman, Babel) gripping new drama, The Revenant.
Indeed, DiCaprio’s name was plastered all over the tabloids earlier in the week after it was revealed that the actor endured quite the shoot for the director’s bold new feature. Between eating raw bison liver and sleeping in animal carcasses, DiCaprio was committed to the craft, and that raw intensity really shone through during the film’s maiden trailer.
Part and parcel of that aesthetic, though, is Iñárritu’s filmmaking style. Relying on natural lighting while keeping special effects to an absolute minimum, the director has went the extra mile to really envelope the audience in the icy and uncharted American wilderness. Today’s poster really captures that crippling feeling of isolation, too, casting a lone rider – DiCaprio’s Hugh Glass, we assume – astray in the frightening outback.
Based on the eponymous novel by Michael Punke, Iñárritu’s much-anticipated feature also stars Tom Hardy, The Force Awakens and Ex Machina‘s Domhnall Gleeson and Will Poulter.
The Revenant will open for a limited run on Christmas Day, before expanding to theaters nationwide on January 8, 2016. In the interim, you can gaze longingly at the stark new poster down below.
Inspired by true events, The Revenant is an immersive and visceral cinematic experience capturing one man’s epic adventure of survival and the extraordinary power of the human spirit. In an expedition of the uncharted American wilderness, legendary explorer Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is brutally attacked by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team. In a quest to survive, Glass endures unimaginable grief as well as the betrayal of his confidant John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). Guided by sheer will and the love of his family, Glass must navigate a vicious winter in a relentless pursuit to live and find redemption.
