Best films of the week
The Mountain Between Us (2017) ✰✰✰✰ (Channel 4, 9.00pm) Storm clouds amass over Salt Lake City, grounding all commercial flights. Photojournalist Alex Martin (Kate Winslet) is poised to marry fiance Mark (Dermot Mulroney) the following day in New York. She charters a two-person plane from avuncular pilot Walter (Beau Bridges), and offers the second seat to Dr Ben Bass (Idris Elba). During the flight, Walter suffers a stroke and the plane careens into a snow-laden peak in the High Uintas Wilderness. Walter perishes; Ben suffers bruises and broken ribs, and Alex’s leg is injured. When she regains consciousness, the strangers confront the reality that Walter didn’t log a flight plan so they are alone in the sub-zero wilderness. Based on the novel by Charles Martin, director Hany Abu-Assad’s drama remains airborne thanks to solid performances from Winslet and Elba.
The Broken Hearts Gallery (2020) ✰✰✰ (Sky Cinema Premiere, 10.30am & 10.00pm) Premiere Twenty-something gallery assistant Lucy (Geraldine Viswanathan) is an emotional hoarder who collects mementos from relationships and scatters them around her room. A tie belonging to Lucy’s boyfriend Max (Utkarsh Ambudkar) becomes the latest addition when he breaks up with her because they are “in different places”. Adding insult to injury, Lucy also loses her job at the Woolf Gallery. A chance encounter with Nick (Dacre Montgomery), who has been self-financing the construction of a boutique hotel in the shell of an old YMCA, encourages Lucy to create a pop-up exhibition of her mementos. Fellow New Yorkers arrive with bizarre keepsakes, expanding the collection to hundreds of trinkets. The Broken Hearts Gallery is an exuberant romantic comedy, which fizzes sweetly like a mouth full of rainbow dust.