'The Mountain Between Us' and a good film is any sense of reality, survival or Romance
“The Mountain Between Us” is the inability to suspend disbelief in this mess of a film. Yes, if you can forget about the predicament the 2 people are in, the scenery is fantastic. Everyone loves snow-capped mountainscapes and winter forest scenes as long as they don’t have to live in them. Idris Elba and Kate Winslet do their best acting work with what they are given. It would have been better if the film knew where to quit or at least draw a line, but… This film is terrible.
If, in spite of my use of the word terrible, you are going to see this film, here is the obligatory spoiler alert message. Check after the trailer for more, filled with spoilers, review because the problems with the film can only be addressed in full on spoiler mode…
If, in spite of my use of the word terrible, you are going to see this film, here is the obligatory spoiler alert message. Check after the trailer for more, filled with spoilers, review because the problems with the film can only be addressed in full on spoiler mode…
As a survival film, this movie is woefully inadequate. Elba and Winslet crash above the tree line someplace in the mountains – not one mountain but miles of mountains. So many mountains in the distance that anyone who has ever hiked off trail would immediately tell you that these people are doomed if they attempt to leave their plane. Seriously, a good hiker would have severe problems during the summer. A surgeon and a journalist with a wounded leg have zero chance of making it.
I could have forgiven the leaking gas inside the cabin where they were making their home, which Elba used to make fire, as a part of movie convention. It would probably be a bad idea to start a fire with leaking fuel in the area, but hey, it’s a movie, so just go with it for now. Elba fixes Winslet’s leg, good thing he’s a doctor, and she urges him to go off and find a road out, which is when we find out about the mountains.
After 3 days, a confrontation with a mountain lion that leads to Elba patching up the dog and a seriously good puma filet, Winslet insists that they go out. Elba disagrees. Winslet with her leg in a giant splint proceeds out into the deep snow on her own. Elba knows that when you are lost, you should stay on one place but decides he has to help Winslet in her quest to hike through the snow with a severely lacerated leg that might be infected by now.
And they traipse through the snow, stopping in a cave, stopping in a tree fort, and finally stopping in a cabin. How long had they been traipsing? An hour film time, and in all this hiking through the woods neither one of them got frostbite or hypothermia until Winslet falls through the ice of a frozen lake.
Obligatory sex scene. In all the time they were out, they ate one mountain cat at the very beginning of their trip and a couple cans of soup after Winslet fell through the ice. If it really was a 3-week time span, the 2 stars looked really well-fed for not having eaten anything. Winslet didn’t look any more waifish, and Elba didn’t lose any muscle mass.
They leave the cabin together because Elba didn’t want to find the road alone. They get cold. Winslet can’t go on, Elba puts her in a makeshift sled and drags her behind him, which in the case of hypothermia is one of the worst things you could do for a person because now, in this case, Winslet is no longer generating her own body heat, nor does she have a reason to stay awake. Finally, the end up falling asleep supporting each other and supported by the tree. If only that would have been where the movie ended.
Instead, they fall asleep so hard that the still-not-thin dog (What has he been eating? We know he can’t catch rabbit.) barks in their ears, and they don’t wake up. It takes the dog pushing Elba down a hill for Elba to become awake.
They see the saw mill in the distance and find the courage, strength and fortitude to continue on until Elba walks into a bear trap. Winslet goes on without him, gets rescued by a logging truck as she falls down due to exhaustion, or possibly her bum knee, and the screen fades to black. Seriously, end the movie here.
Winslet is back with her fiancé and both stars are recovering in the hospital. End the movie here. Instead, we are treated to 30 minutes of their lives after this beyond miraculous survival stunt because “The Mountain Between Us” isn’t a physical mountain (and it’s not a survival film). It’s a metaphor for the life that Winslet has with her fiancé and Elba’s unwillingness to open himself up (and it’s a romance). Winslet is hosting dinner parties with her fiancé; Elba is back by himself. They are ignoring each other, and life goes on. Until it doesn’t…
At least Winslet and Elba are worth watching and make “The Mountain Between Us” not a terrible waste of time. But as a survival story or a romance it doesn’t work. As both, it sucks.
I could have forgiven the leaking gas inside the cabin where they were making their home, which Elba used to make fire, as a part of movie convention. It would probably be a bad idea to start a fire with leaking fuel in the area, but hey, it’s a movie, so just go with it for now. Elba fixes Winslet’s leg, good thing he’s a doctor, and she urges him to go off and find a road out, which is when we find out about the mountains.
After 3 days, a confrontation with a mountain lion that leads to Elba patching up the dog and a seriously good puma filet, Winslet insists that they go out. Elba disagrees. Winslet with her leg in a giant splint proceeds out into the deep snow on her own. Elba knows that when you are lost, you should stay on one place but decides he has to help Winslet in her quest to hike through the snow with a severely lacerated leg that might be infected by now.
And they traipse through the snow, stopping in a cave, stopping in a tree fort, and finally stopping in a cabin. How long had they been traipsing? An hour film time, and in all this hiking through the woods neither one of them got frostbite or hypothermia until Winslet falls through the ice of a frozen lake.
Obligatory sex scene. In all the time they were out, they ate one mountain cat at the very beginning of their trip and a couple cans of soup after Winslet fell through the ice. If it really was a 3-week time span, the 2 stars looked really well-fed for not having eaten anything. Winslet didn’t look any more waifish, and Elba didn’t lose any muscle mass.
They leave the cabin together because Elba didn’t want to find the road alone. They get cold. Winslet can’t go on, Elba puts her in a makeshift sled and drags her behind him, which in the case of hypothermia is one of the worst things you could do for a person because now, in this case, Winslet is no longer generating her own body heat, nor does she have a reason to stay awake. Finally, the end up falling asleep supporting each other and supported by the tree. If only that would have been where the movie ended.
Instead, they fall asleep so hard that the still-not-thin dog (What has he been eating? We know he can’t catch rabbit.) barks in their ears, and they don’t wake up. It takes the dog pushing Elba down a hill for Elba to become awake.
They see the saw mill in the distance and find the courage, strength and fortitude to continue on until Elba walks into a bear trap. Winslet goes on without him, gets rescued by a logging truck as she falls down due to exhaustion, or possibly her bum knee, and the screen fades to black. Seriously, end the movie here.
Winslet is back with her fiancé and both stars are recovering in the hospital. End the movie here. Instead, we are treated to 30 minutes of their lives after this beyond miraculous survival stunt because “The Mountain Between Us” isn’t a physical mountain (and it’s not a survival film). It’s a metaphor for the life that Winslet has with her fiancé and Elba’s unwillingness to open himself up (and it’s a romance). Winslet is hosting dinner parties with her fiancé; Elba is back by himself. They are ignoring each other, and life goes on. Until it doesn’t…
At least Winslet and Elba are worth watching and make “The Mountain Between Us” not a terrible waste of time. But as a survival story or a romance it doesn’t work. As both, it sucks.