Give Yourself Over to the Ridiculous Fantasy of The Mountain Between U.s.a.

Kate Winslet and Idris Elba in The Mountain Between Us. Photo: Kimberley French/Twentieth Century Fob Moving-picture show Corporation.

The affiche for the wilderness-survival saga The Mount Between United states poses the question, "What if your life depended on a stranger?" My answer is that it would depend on the stranger. If it were Rob Schneider, I'd throw myself off a cliff before the wolves could become me. Idris Elba with a medical caste, I'd like my chances.

He plays Ben Bass, a British neurosurgeon who, even with cracked ribs, effortlessly braces and ices cleaved limbs, stitches wounds, and devises a homemade saline drip for treating dehydration. He's so utterly gorgeous that it's difficult for the audience to pay total attention to the crisis at hand: two people thousands of anxiety above sea level in subzero temperatures with little food and no ane who knows fifty-fifty their approximate location because the airplane pilot of their small-scale plane filed no flight plan before having a heart assail at the controls. That there's a situation.

I should have mentioned that Kate Winslet is the other stranger on whom one's life might depend and, despite protracted periods of unconsciousness, she's no slouch when it comes to survival. I read Charles Martin'southward novel on which the movie is based so you don't accept to, and it was interesting to see what changes the screenwriters (J. Mills Goodloe and Chris Weitz) fabricated to convert a male-savior fantasy into i more in tune with 2017 female expectations. Winslet'due south grapheme, Alex, is now a crusading photojournalist, and while she does require a lot of saving, she gets to save Ben, also, and even square off alone against a hungry mountain lion.

Alex and Ben quarrel more than than in the volume, which means more than interesting drama but besides more instances in which Alex looks like an idiot. Ben, hoping for imminent rescue, wants to stay in the surviving piece of the plane at the superlative of a ridge with its crackling burn and supply of mount-lion kebabs. Alex believes that — despite her broken leg — they'd take a better chance tromping over 12-foot drifts astride vertiginous driblet-offs hoping to stumble on the odd cave or ski resort or maybe get one bar on Ben's phone. After Ben reams her out for getting him into this mess, she takes off on her ain in a huff and goes about a minute and a huff earlier looking like she knows it's a terrible idea. But she survived the Titanic, damn it. She won't plow back.

It's said y'all accept a choice at a moving-picture show similar The Mountain Between Us: Laugh at it or go with it. I don't see those ii things as mutually exclusive. I laughed at it and enjoyed the hell out of it. Survival sagas that aren't overloaded with existentialist baggage can be a treat, even with all their absurdities in plain view, and this one has two beautiful actors who gaze longingly at each other while subtext swirls effectually them like falling snow. Alex had to lease a plane in the confront of an oncoming storm to get to Denver in time for her wedding. Ben — who listens to the same voice bulletin from his wife over and over — is more attentive about his home life, even afterward Alex gives him the quondam we-might-dice-together-yous-might-as-well-tell-me-about-your-married woman spoken communication. Do they bone? Ask yourself this: Would you? One nice thing about a movie set mainly in bright, blinding snow is that you can look around the theater and see the shining faces of people who are really into the fantasy.

The Palestinian director, Hany Abu-Assad, is a long way, literally and figuratively, from the gritty moral dilemmas of Paradise Now and Omar. Aided by cinematographer Mandy Walker, he does a tasteful, bystander'southward chore. The movie looks authentic until the couple wanders into a cave with a veritable ocean of too-picturesque stalactites. I don't begrudge that touch of movie magic, though. It's not like your plane would e'er get down with Idris Elba and Kate Winslet anyway. I forgot to mention at that place's a dog who belonged to the dead pilot. That means always-entertaining dog reaction shots. Plus the pooch gets to be a savior, too.

The denouement of The Mountain Between Us is long and clunky and I wouldn't lose a infinitesimal of it. Run across it while the folks next door at Blade Runner 2049 are suffering (whether they admit it or not) through 2 hours and 43 minutes of dystopian malaise. You'll get the better bargain.

The Mount Between Us Is an Enjoyable, Ridiculous Fantasy