I sometimes wonder why actors and actresses chose to appear
in the movies they do. I’m sure some
choices are made because of the size of the paycheck they’re getting, others
are done in the hopes of vying for an Oscar, while some are done to increase
their brand or name recognition. And
then there are movies like “The Mountain Between Us” that falls outside of all
of these categories. I can’t imagine
that its stars, Kate Winslet and Idris Elba, would be tempted by the shooting
location of this project, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and this isn’t
the sort of film that will increase their name recognition or cause their hat
to be thrown in the ring for any awards.
No, I think one thing that drives movie stars is ego, the
notion that they have talent enough to turn any sow’s ear of a script into a
silk purse of a movie, that they crave a challenge, trying to make the
ridiculous seem plausible. I gave this a
great deal of thought while watching “Mountain,” which should tell you just how
engaging it is. Actually, I can give it
the greatest of backhanded compliments I can think of by saying that it wasn’t
as bad as I thought it would be. Then
again, neither was my colonoscopy but that’s neither here nor there.
Winslet is photographer Alex Martin and Elba is neurosurgeon
Ben Bass and they are both stuck at a California airport, their flight having
been cancelled due to inclement weather.
Well, that simply won’t do as she has to get to New York City for her
wedding and he has an emergency surgery to perform on a young boy. Desperate and in a hurry, they charter a
private plane and once they’re in the air, the pilot (Beau Bridges) promptly
has a stroke and dies. The pair survives
the horrendous crash that follows – Alex with a broken leg and Ben with some
bumps and bruises – and try to figure out how they will survive this ordeal.
Needless to say, they have more than a few obstacles to
overcome, including but not limited to, sub-zero temperatures, blinding snow,
mountain lions, harsh winds, a lack of food and a really, really long walk back
to civilization. To their credit, the
two leads and director Hany Abu-Assad are able to make the situations and the
couple’s solutions to them seem believable.
As Man vs. Wilds films go this is one of the more plausible entries.
Of course, when trapped in stressful situations, sex is
always in the offing, or so I’ve been told, so it comes as no surprise that
Alex and Ben jump in the sack the first time an opportunity presents
itself. This is all handled quite
tastefully and doesn’t derail the film as it could in lesser hands.
Winslet and Elba are much better than the
material and succeed in elevating it above the level of a gothic romance. Neither of them phone it in, creating
realistic characters in a story that skirts the edge of ridiculousness at every
turn. However, their sincerity is not
reflected in the movie’s ending, a crowd-pleasing climax that opts for
narrative safety rather than story-telling honesty.
This article appears in Oct 5-11, 2017.
