Telegraphed story makes The Mountain Between Us difficult to believe
The Mountain Between Us ★½ (out of 5) Director: Hany Abu-Assad Starring: Kate Winslet, Idris Elba Running time: 1 h 43 m
The question of with whom you would want to be stranded on a mountain is both grammatically and ethically torturous. Do you pick someone most capable of helping you survive? Most appealing in case you need to huddle together for warmth? Or most nutritious in case worst comes to worst?
Director Hany Abu-Assad clearly thinks Kate Winslet and Idris Elba fit the bill. They play Alex and Ben, two strangers eager to get out of Denver when the threat of an approaching storm shuts down the main airport. They charter a small plane piloted by a Vietnam vet (Beau Bridges) who tells them: “Long as nobody’s shooting at me I’ll get you there.”
Trouble is, Mother Nature shoots first in the form of a heart attack. Down goes the plane. Alex suffers a concussion and an injured leg. Ben is shaken and bruised. The pilot’s dog miraculously survives and spends the rest of the movie doing impossibly cute dog-reaction shots. I’d have eaten it.
The Mountain Between Us, based on the novel by Charles Martin, features beautiful snowy scenery and a lot of elemental, episodic dangers including a mountain lion. But the chemistry between the leads isn’t hot enough to melt an ice cube. What’s more, they don’t seem weakened by their injuries, the endless cold or the lack of food. And Ben’s big secret, which Alex eventually teases out after finding his voice recorder, was plain enough to this viewer that it might as well have been written in the snow.
Abu-Assad (Omar, Paradise Now) makes the best of what he has to work with, including the yin/yang, art/science nature of the characters — she’s a photojournalist, he’s a brain surgeon. But the path of the story and its conclusion are telegraphed early on. When you crash on the top of a mountain, the only way you can go is down.