The Snow Walker

PG

Released Jan 9, 2004

1h 49m

Adventure

Drama

List

86%

14 Reviews

Tomatometer

79%

2,500+ Ratings

Audience Score

A bush pilot (Barry Pepper) agrees to take a young Inuit (Annabella Piugattuk) to a hospital, but the plane nosedives, and they must make their way out of the Arctic.

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Shorty T

I watched this movie "The Snow Walker" (2002) back in 2013. In my opinion, it was a pretty good movie showing how one man's perception of the Inuit people changes after he spends time with one after an airplane crash.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

10/05/23

Full Review

John E

It's 1953, and life has molded Charlie Halliday (Barry Pepper) into an arrogant and self-serving individual. When not working as a Canadian bush pilot, his time is spent at the local pub drinking with friends and maintaining a non-committed relationship with one of the bar's waitresses. He resides in the Northern Territories province of upper Canada and his contempt of the local indigenous Inuit population doesn't prevent him from exploiting them for his personal financial gain through side hustles, delivering and selling supplies. These personal endeavors, using one of the planes from his workplace, are overlooked by his employer, Shepherd (James Cromwell). On a particular flight, Charlie encounters a small group of Inuit who implore him to help them. One of the Inuit, a young girl, is sick and they want him to fly her to the hospital back in his town. Charlie suspects the girl has tuberculosis and initially refuses. When the Inuit offer to pay him with valuable walrus tusks, Charlie reluctantly agrees to take her with him. Soon after taking back to the skies, Charlie's plane experiences engine problems and it crashes down in one of the lakes of the huge Canadian tundra. Though both Charlie and his passenger survive, the plane is disabled, and the radio no longer works. He is miles away from where his flight was charted to be, and he realizes that any type of search by his company will never find him. By his estimation he is hundreds of miles from any town. He leaves his passenger with a small amount of the supplies that he had on the plane and sets off to find help on his own. It soon becomes apparent that Charlie is desperately unprepared for the harsh terrain he has decided to traverse. After a battle with swarms of mosquitoes, Charlie succumbs to his environment. He recovers only through the assistance of Kanaalaq (Annabella Piugattuk), the sick girl he thought he had left behind. Over the next three months, Charlie and Kanaalaq learn to communicate and to rely on each other for survival. A true friendship develops between the two, and we experience Charlie's journey of finding, or perhaps simply reestablishing, his sense of purpose and humanity. This is the story of The Snow Walker. The filming of the barren, rocky, and lake-filled expanse of upper Canada is both breathtaking and overwhelming. Director Charles Martin Smith's exploration of this beautiful yet deadly territory is just one of the reasons this film is worth viewing. The story itself is a simple, yet necessary one. This planet is something we all share, and we only succeed when we learn to appreciate all its people, not just those like us. Early in the film we see where the Canadian government had forced all the indigenous peoples to wear tags with numbers on them. This is a sad bit of true Canadian history, and a practice that continued into the late nineteen-seventies. You see, it was simply too difficult for the white settlers to learn to pronounce native names. A blaring example of white-privilege and the dehumanizing of "others" that sadly continues to this day through other forms of equally intentional negations of history and accomplishments of non-whites in western culture. This film would be the first acting experience for Annabella Piugattuk. She was a native Inuit teenager who grew up in the Northwest Territories and had vast knowledge of Inuit life and tradition. Her portrayal is delightful as she unfolds the contrasts between her character's experience and innocence at the same time. Her chemistry with Pepper is charming, and his portrayal of Charlie is top-notch. The story of Charlie's blossoming into a better man and better person is enhanced by the fact that the relationship between Charlie and Kanaalaq remains entirely platonic and one of mutual respect. This film was an uplifting and entirely enjoyable experience.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

05/09/23

Full Review

rob e

Seen this movie a few times, it gets better every time, one of Barry Peppers best roles ,Annabella Piugattuk, was amazing.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Good movie, and I liked the interaction between the two lead characters. The ending was very dull though. I expected it to go much differently. I think the movie ended about 10 or 15 mins too soon. The final 30 mins should have been written much differently.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

05/27/20

Full Review

Audience Member

A good movie! It brings more appreciation for the Native American beliefs. Thank you for making this!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/19/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I enjoyed it very much. Very touching movie which showed how connections can be msde between 2 persons who do not speak the same language during an emergency situation.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/19/23

Full Review

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Charles Martin Smith

Director

Barry Pepper

Charlie Halliday

Annabella Piugattuk

Kanaalaq

James Cromwell

Shepherd

Kiersten Warren

Estelle

Jon Gries

Pierce

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Susan Walker

Toronto Star

The Snow Walker is not Atanarjuat, but it captures the actual scenic beauty of the North and with it, the poetic truth of brotherhood in an unforgiving land.

Rated: 3/5

Mar 5, 2004

Full Review

Rick Groen

Globe and Mail

As predicable as the annual fall of the Maple Leafs, but considerably more tragic, as traditional as the recurring scam of political patronage, but a lot more compelling, The Snow Walker is a vintage slice of Canadiana.

Rated: 3/4

Mar 5, 2004

Full Review

Michael Rechtshaffen

Hollywood Reporter

Constant interruptions prevent the story from building to a satisfying emotional pitch, leaving the film, like the characters, to trudge circuitously across that vast frozen tundra.

Mar 3, 2004

Full Review

Film Threat

Rated: 4/5

Dec 6, 2005

Full Review

MaryAnn Johanson

Flick Filosopher

[A]voids descending into the overtly sentimental by not romanticizing a harsh land...

May 25, 2005

Full Review

Christopher Null

Filmcritic.com

Give it a whirl after you turn up the heat

Rated: 3.5/5

Apr 7, 2005

Full Review

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Synopsis

A bush pilot (Barry Pepper) agrees to take a young Inuit (Annabella Piugattuk) to a hospital, but the plane nosedives, and they must make their way out of the Arctic.

Director: Charles Martin Smith
Distributor: Lionsgate Films, First Look
Production Co: First Look Media, Infinity Entertainment, Infinity International Entertainment
Rating: PG (Some Disturbing Behavior|Language|Brief Nudity|Thematic Elements)
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jan 9, 2004, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Dec 19, 2016
Runtime: 1h 49m
Sound Mix: Surround

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