The Mountain Between Us (2017)

Starring: Kate Winslet, Idris Elba, Beau Bridges

Director: Hany Abu-Assad

The day before Alex (Winslet) is due to get married and Ben (Elba) is to perform vital surgery, they find themselves stranded in an airport when all flights are cancelled. Desperate to get back, the two strangers decide to charter a small plane. But when the pilot (Bridges) has a heart attack in the air, they crash land and find themselves alone, with the pilots dog, in the middle of snow covered nowhere. No one knows where they are. Can they work together to make it to safety? Or will they die in the icy wilderness?

A two hander between two fine actors, this film gives high expectations. And on the whole, it’s beautifully shot and the performances are very good. And yet, there’s something flat about the whole film. I think perhaps because it should be an adventure or thriller film, and yet it feels a lot of the time like a cheesey romance.

Alex is due to be getting married the next day, and yet her husband seems like a one dimensional concept rather than someone she is mad to be with. Why did the writers choose that for her character? It’s like something out of a rom com. Can’t she need to get home for a work assignment too? It’s little jarring notes like this that undermine the intensity of the drama.

And when you’re talking about a film that starts with a death and a plane crash, and involves a number of desperate acts, danger and only a small chance of survival, that tension is really important. I think if you’re seeing this film hoping for some kind of survival thriller, you’re not going to like it, but if you want a romance with some mild and not entirely believable adventure, then it has it’s charms.

See It If: it’s date night and your boyfriend refuses to sit through a chick flick. It’s a rom com disguised as an action movie. And it’s pretty cheesey.