Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman
In
Backcountry, in
Powassan, Ontario, and Caddy Lake, Manitoba, Alex convinces his
girlfriend Jenn to go camping with him in one of Canada's remote
provincial parks. She's a lawyer, while he's a landscaper. He
believes his expertise as a woodsman will allow him to shine once
he's in his element, and he wants to impress her, because he plans to
pop the question while they're on their trip. Nothing goes as he'd
hoped, and, despite his rudimentary skills as a woodsman—he can
pitch a tent, chop wood, start a fire, and read sign—it's soon
clear he's in over his head. In fact, once she's forced to fend for
herself, Jenn, ironically, proves herself to be more competent than
Alex, whose vanity, eagerness to impress Jenn at any cost, and
minimal woodcraft, led him to make a series of poor judgments that,
if it were not for their catastrophic consequences, might have made
the film a comedy. He makes at least a dozen serious errors in
judgment:
He
refuses a ranger's offer of a park map. He's been to the park so many
times, he says, he has no need of a map. As a result, when he later
becomes lost, he and Jenn have no guidance out of the forest.
Annoyed
that Jenn returns telephone calls during their trip to the park, Alex
removes her cell phone from her backpack, leaving it behind, in the
trunk of his car. Once the couple becomes lost, they have no way to
call for help.
He
leaves Jenn alone when he goes to chop wood for their campfire. In
his absence, a stranger, Brad, happens upon Jenn. As Alex himself
later points out, both to Jenn and to Brad, Brad could have been a
dangerous “nut” who might have raped or killed Jenn. Despite this
realization, Alex again leaves Jenn alone when he goes to retrieve
the hatchet he left in the side of a tree at the site at which he'd
chopped the wood.
When
he spies a bear print, Alex doesn't share this sign with Jenn. Jenn
has bear spray and a traffic flare that they could use against the
bear, but she is unaware of its presence. The bear could (and, later,
does) kill someone.
Although
he is uncertain of the correct path to the lake, Alex continues their
trek through the forest, despite his not having a map, a cell phone,
or a weapon (other than, perhaps, his hatchet).
During
the night, Jenn hears mysterious sounds. Without investigating, Alex
tells Jenn she's hearing nothing more than acorns falling from the
trees, onto their tent. He may believe the sounds are the effects of
falling acorns, as he says, or he may not want Jenn to think the
sounds are caused by a bear, whether to keep her from being afraid or
to prevent her from wanting to leave, in which case he is also being
deceitful.
After
hearing the sounds of what be a bear, instead of falling acorns, Alex
refuses to leave the park.
After
seeing a broken tree branch indicative of a bear's nearby presence,
Alex refuses to leave the park.
After
seeing the carcass of a dead deer indicating the presence of a
bear—and of a bear that is both starving (bears, otherwise, don't
eat meat—and predatory)—Alex refuses to leave the park.
Even
after the bear visits their campsite, Alex refuses to leave the park.
Early
in the movie, Alex injures himself by dropping the canoe in which he
and Jenn arrive at their initial campsite on his foot. He doesn't
tend to the injury for over a day, by which time his sock is soaked
in his blood. He hangs the sock in a tree, and the blood attracts a
hungry black bear.
Alex
leaves his hatchet outside the couple's tent. Had he brought the
hatchet inside the tent, he would have had a weapon with which to
fight off the attacking bear; without it, he has nothing but his
hands and feet.
She
does not insist that Alex accept a park map from the ranger or accept
one herself.
In
Alex's absence, Jenn invites Brad into their campsite.
She
does not insist that Alex make sure the “acorns” he says are
falling on their tent really are
acorns.
She
does not insist that Alex take her home after she sees evidence of
the nearby presence of a bear.
She
returns to their campsite after the bear has killed Alex so she can
retrieve the engagement ring he has shown her.
Although Jenn, like Alex, makes mistakes in judgment, she is not a woodman and the couple's survival is not primarily her responsibility. In addition, she is not deceitful toward Alex, as he is to her. When she is alone, after Alex's death, her decisions are wise, allowing her to survive the bear and the wilderness.
Despite
these mistakes, Jenn also makes wise decisions, even in the face of
danger and under the pressure of stress:
She has the presence of
mind to use her bear spray and her whistle to twice frighten off the
bear before it can attack her.
She bathes her right
arm, which was injured in the bear attack, and bandages it.
She sleeps in the fork
of a tree's high branches.
She uses her flare to
signal for help.
She recalls Alex's
advice about eating spearmint berries and Brad's counsel that hikers
should climb down the right, not the left, side of the park's
waterfall.
She follows a buck,
hoping it will lead her to water or out of the forest. The animal
leads her to the waterfall.
She makes a splint and
sets the leg she breaks in a fall during her descent of the cliff
beside the waterfall.
Despite
her amateur status as a woodsman, Jenn is more successful in
navigating the forest and escaping the bear than Alex had been. His
decisions endangered their lives. Some of hers did as well, although
most of them helped her to survive her ordeal.
The
movie does a good job of depicting the consequences of the
characters' respective behaviors, suggesting that what one does
results from his or her character no less than his or her motives.
Alex
wants to impress Jenn, but he wants to do so because of his own
insecurities. He feels inferior to her, because, in the everyday
world in which they live the majority of the time, she, as a lawyer,
occupies a position of greater status that he has as a landscaper.
Although
she frequently defers to him and is eager, most of the time, to
support his sense of himself and to shore up any doubts he may have
of his masculinity or personal worth, she seems ambiguous about these
aspects of his character. When she loses her temper after they become
lost in the park, she says she wants to speak honestly to him “for
once,” calling him a “loser” who always manages to mishandle or
otherwise botch “everything.”
Alex
also seems to care less about Jenn than he does about his own fragile
self-image. He often rushes up and down the trail, leaving Jenn in
his wake to fend for herself in the rough terrain, among tree
branches, logs, brambles, and other obstacles. Even after he knows
that a dangerous bear is following them and lurks in the vicinity of
their campsites, he continues, without regard for his safety of her
own, to proceed on their misguided journey, endangering their lives.
In preparing for their trip, he took no precautions, failing to bring
bear spray, a whistle, or a rifle.
In
his mind, he is too macho to need such provisions or to heed the
danger signs he sees in the forest. His poor judgment, however, is no
match for the starving bear. The animal's ripping and tearing him
apart, which is shown in grisly detail, is proof that he is no match
for nature. In trying to impress Jenn by proving his manhood, Alex
endangers both his life and hers.
At
the beginning of the movie, as they are driving to the remote park,
Jenn gives Alex a multiple-choice “boyfriend test” published in
an issue of a women's magazine she's brought with her. Many of the
items deal with consideration. Alex fails the test miserably,
suggesting he isn't considerate at all of Jenn. He cares more about
himself than he does her. Although he dies protecting her, giving her
an opportunity to escape, it is he who, through his own insecurities
and poor judgments, put her—and himself—in such a dire situation
to begin with. As the test predicted, Alex was poor boyfriend
material. Chances are, he'd have been poor marriage material as well.
Jenn was lucky to survive the bear, as she was lucky to survive Alex.