The Dark-Horse Oscar Contender Everyone’s Watching
Society of the Snow is an often-nightmarish—but wildly absorbing—viewing experience.
tells the real-life story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, a plane that crashed into the Andes in 1972 and left its passengers, a rugby team and their supporters, starving and stranded for 72 days. It’s a gruesome tale—the survivors eventually resorted to cannibalism—that’s been dramatized many times before, most notably in 1993’s , but the director J. A. Bayona’s rendition may be the most immersive take yet. The crash scene is meticulously re-created—people being sucked out of the fuselage, bones shattering as the seats get ripped from the floor, bodies crumpling toward the cockpit. Most of the
