Based upon the novel The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin
Screenplay Written by Chris Weitz and J. Mills Goodloe
Directed by Hany Abu-Assad
* (one star)
RATED PG 13
Well...at least they didn't eat the dog.
For all of you out there who may have entertained a certain fantasy of being luxuriously enclosed upon a mountaintop with the likes of either Kate Winslet or Idris Elba, then please allow me to vehemently steer you completely away from "The Mountain Between Us."
Woooo-eee is this a terrible movie, one where the survivalist danger in question is flat out arbitrary to the point of being laugh out loud comedic and the so-called love story is even worse. Frankly, both Winslet and Elba, who surprisingly possess zero chemistry, look absolutely miserable throughout the film, and honestly, for all of the scenes where each of them happen to look skywards in anguish, it just felt as if they were each desperately attempting to reach their respective agents telepathically, mentally delivering propulsive tongue lashings lambasting them for ever getting them to enter a project this preposterous and stupidly overwrought.
Look, I do get it. I am honestly not trying to be some sort of insufferable "film snob" who just can't go to a movie and have a good time with it. Not everything has to necessarily be "art," so to speak. The problem with a movie like "The Mountain Between Us" is that the execution is so astoundingly poor that I was unable to buy into the fantasy being presented to me whatsoever--even with people as jaw droppingly attractive and charismatic as Kate Winslet and Idria Elba filling every frame of the screen alongside the wintry, mountain vistas. Trust me, dear readers, you have been warned!!
"The Mountain Between Us" stars the aforementioned Kate Winslet as photojournalist Alex Martin and Idris Elba as neurosurgeon Ben Bass, complete strangers both of whom are struggling to find airline travel out of Idaho for a wedding and a crucial surgery, respectively. Unfortunately, due to a severe winter storm, all flights have been cancelled. But hey...the two meet and commiserate about their travel troubles and then decide to...wait for it...charter a plane to their respective destinations.
OK...right here, the film stumbles into its first deep pothole because would you charter a plane when EVERY airline has delayed all of their flights due to dangerously inclement weather? I didn't think so. Furthermore, when it is revealed that none other than Beau Bridges would be the pilot, Iand even then, he would not even bother to record a flightplan, I was stunned that both Winslet and Elba did not just walk backwards out of the plane hanger, because we all know that Beau Bridges will not last long!
Well...true to form Bridges (who clearly took this role after losing a bet with his brother Jeff) knew the score as he dies from a downright hysterical stroke mid flight causing the plane to crash, leaving only Alex (with an injured leg), Ben and the pilot's unnamed and delightfully happy dog as the survivors.
From there, "The Mountain Between Us" becomes a tale of survival and the threesome are stranded in the frigid wilderness and forced to attempt to make their way back to civilization with all manner of obstacles like nearly falling off of cliffs, facing down hungry mountain lions, descending through cracked ice, lethal frostbite and even more lethal dialogue, contrived situations, arguments and most certainly, their hot blooded attraction towards each other.
Oh boy. Again, I get it. From a fantasy perspective, I can clearly understand the whirlwind of being ensconced with Ms. Winslet or Mr. Elba (myself included--but truth be told, not on a mountaintop as I am an indoor type of person--a dream date with Ms. Winslet at a coffee shop would be heaven, but I digress). By why oh why, did the film have to be so ill conceived from the get-go with completely under-written, one note characters that are flatter than the pages they were written on?
Not for any instant did either Alex or Ben ever feel like real people and since both Winslet and Elba had no real characters to play, I cannot blame them for the shallowness of their performances, which never generated any sense of realism, peril, or even romantic tension.
All we received was Alex's confounding habit of taking photographs while fighting for survival and her pestering of Ben to reveal the nature of his relationship with his wife, which of course is fraught with a pre-fabricated backstory/tragedy that you will see coming a mile away...just like about 70% of the hackneyed dialogue, manufactured.arguments, and preposterous decisions on the part of the characters and filmmakers. Hell, even the potential sexual tension is painfully undercooked because hey, this is a PG 13 film, so a wasted opportunity that was, huh?
Look...this film got to be so ridiculous that I felt the need to entertain myself throughout somehow and it was indeed through the presence of the dog, who even after surviving a face off with that aforementioned mountain lion, conveyed a happy-go-lucky, constantly wagging tail spirit that belied absolutely everything the film was attempting to convey.
In fact, the dog was clearly having so much fun playing in the snow, the filmmakers often entirely forgot about him as he would disappear for long stretches only to re-appear in high spirits as he pranced around Winslet and Elba who were desperately trying to illicit some sense of frozen, near death terror. And so, in addition to wondering if the dog would have to be eaten, I often asked aloud, "Where's the dog????" anytime he mysteriously vanished. Yes, the little things when faced with a terrible movie.
There's really not much more to say about a movie like "The Mountain Between Us" where not much makes that much sense, let alone the maudlin title. Please, even if you just love staring at either Kate Winslet or Idria Elba or both, just find some photos on these interwebs and gaze away as a still photograph is more compelling than any one moment in this awful movie.
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