Idris Elba emerges from the wreckage of his demolished plane. He scrambles over mounds of snow, wrapping a scarf around his neck. He walks near the edge of the cliff and looks everywhere. He screams for help. No one responds. The camera zooms out, revealing his lonely perch on top of a mountain. He’s a speck on a sea of white. Nobody is coming to rescue him. It’s a gorgeous, chilling shot, capturing a sense of isolation. Unfortunately, nice shots like these are about as much as The Mountain Between Us can offer.
Most of the action in Mountain takes place between massive peaks. It’s fitting, since the film tries to straddle the line between survival picture and romantic drama. Ultimately, it settles in an unsatisfying valley.
Kate Winslet’s characters should just stay in one place. After Titanic and Contagion, it’s clear long-distance travel doesn’t end well for her. But that’s what she does here. She plays Alex, a journalist trying to get home in time for her wedding. A snowstorm isn’t being so accommodating for major airlines, so she hires a rickety charter plane piloted by the always unwelcome and untalented Beau Bridges. She’s joined by Idris Elba’s Ben, a surgeon with a shady past that’s pretty obvious to figure out. In no time flat, their pilot has a stroke and crashes on a mountain, leaving them little hope to survive. They’ll have to rely on each other to brave the elements and the hostile wildlife.
It’s a standard set-up for a survival movie and Mountain doesn’t stray too far from the well-worn tropes. There are injuries, food shortages, long treks through the cold, and slow revelations about the characters’ past. The added wrinkle is the aforementioned romance element, which isn’t something you saw in The Grey (although Liam Neeson’s fists made sweet love to those wolves’ jaws). But it’s not exactly a revolutionary twist. It mostly plays as a serious version of Blue Lagoon, Swept Away, or Overboard (I hope one of those references made sense).
The actors do their best with the material. Elba delivers the strongest performance, using his trademark coiled intensity to good effect. Winslet is alright, although you get the sense she’s not completely giving it her all. Together, they form a decent, if unremarkable, chemistry. They’re not awful characters, but after two-hours with them, you won’t exactly be clamouring to see them in a sequel (The Canyon Between Us?)
The cinematography is the film’s saving grace. It captures the stark beauty of snowy mountains. People are rendered insignificant and puny in the gorgeous wide shots. Every frame (at least the ones set outside) has a rich crispness about it. It’s a splendid film to look at, even if you’re not engaged with its plot.
Sadly, that beauty hampers the film. Mountain is a pretty movie, but it lacks grit. For a survival picture, that’s a big problem. The mountain never feels threatening or dangerous. It feels like the actors are walking through a set, not a deathtrap. At worst it feels like a slightly inconvenient cross-country ski trip. The film is too nice-looking to be tense, which neuters most scenes.
The Mountain Between Us might make for a decent date movie in a pinch, but it fails to enliven its tired setup. It wants to be at the peak, but it struggles to climb out of a ditch.
