Anything to Survive

Based on a true story, this television drama was filmed along Canada's west coast, in winter. The cast and crew worked in icy waters and freezing rain. It was a miserable "shoot" but so was the horror of the real people involved. You will notice a very young and green Matt Leblanc in a roll years before "Friends". Robert Conrad was very strong and real...a true professional.

Richard Long

A Canadian-American disaster survival TV film drama; A story about a carpenter and his teenage children who spend weeks ashore freezing and starving, shipwrecked off Alaska. The film is based on the ordeal of an author and his three teenaged children in the winter of 1979. The film's theme about the power of positivity matches what the coastguards believed helped them. It creates sufficient tension and has a good enough story and the performances of the cast are good, portraying the family members and the mistakes they believed they were making to do the right thing.

We stayed up late to watch this film, and never have I laughed so much! The script was poor and, appreciating it was based on a true story, the attempts of the family to escape, for me simply descended into hilarity, where it should have been a more serious film. For example, the ironically funny scene where they stupidly break the oars to use as crutches, not thinking that where there are oars, there is surely a boat! Watch only for amusement....

This survival story of an athletic man (played by the athletic Conrad), his athletic son, and his two daughters is based on a true story.

If so, there aren't any punches pulled on the hatefulness and evil of one of the characters. The father is realistic, and bases his hopes for his family on realism. The son is believable enough as a jock with a decent enough heart. The youngest daughter is subject to harassment and hate that looks to have been going on for way too much from her vicious older sister.

The older sister is, quite frankly, a demonic creature that torments her younger sister even at the point of death. If this was her true character, one would feel sorry for anyone under her control. One must feel for the younger daughter, who can't even trust her own family, and for good reason, and whose struggle for survival is against all the odds.

The story itself has a ring of truth to it, but also a ring of stupidity on the father's part for putting them in this situation, and for being so callous as to allow the youngest daughter to be put through a Hell no one should have to go through. Granted, he's fairly moderate, but the hatefulness of the older sister goes beyond normal "picking". It's sheer demonic possession and evil at best.

As for the rest, it looks like very realistic drama, with the weakening of the senses and the brains affecting even the healthy male members of the party, making the struggle even harder. One should not think this is a fault of their own. It's simply the human body succumbing to the elements, struggling to make the right decisions.

Matt LeBlanc was so fantastic and memorable in this great, living-it-as-you're-watching-it, movie. As I understand it, this movie is what basically launched his career, and I can see why.