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The Mountain Between Us (2017), PG-13, ★★


I was sort of looking forward to this movie primarily because of the actors but also a movie set in the wilderness gets me a bit hyped because we may not know what may happen to one character or a group of characters. But what I like about these survival movies is how they overcome the obstacles physically but also mentally as they use their skills to try to survive. The Grey, 127 Hours and The Revenant are prime examples of that and Kate Winslet did ask Leonardo DiCaprio as to how experience filming in the snow felt after it was over. Even though I applaud the filmmakers and the production staff to film the movie in the mountains, I wished they focused a lot more on realism on their script than fall onto these cliches in both its narrative and its formulaic romance.

While being stuck in an airport because of an upcoming storm and cancelled flights, surgeon Ben Bass (Idris Elba) and photojournalist Alex Martin (Kate Winslet) need to desperately leave so they board by a charter plane, flown by its pilot, Walter (Beau Bridges), being accompanied by his dog. Ben is on schedule to perform surgery in the next day whereas Alex Martin has to get married to his fiancee (Dermot Mulroney) in less than 24 hours. Their pilot suffers a stroke mid-flight and the plane crashes. The two travelers and the dog survives with Ben having fractured ribs and Alex having a fractured leg. In the next hour in the movie, they have to find civilization because they realize that rescue is not possible. As they try to find ways to survive, romance starts to blossom between them.


Kate Winslet and Idris Elba are way too good for this material, a Twilight sort of romance. The movie depends on pretty shots of mountains and its lovely cinematography that looks like stunning photos for National Geographic or nice shots for Hallmark cards. The holiday season is getting closer. The whole narrative is predictable as to how these characters' fates will end.

Another problem with the movie is its logic. I did not feel that there was much peril with these characters as they are searching for a way to survive. They feel like they just stepped out of their trailer and they just cover them with makeup and snow and the director will say "Action!" Also, the most problematic is how they use the characters as "punching bags" in which a person falls so many yards down a mountain and they do not get hurt right away. It made me laugh a little bit.

Winslet and Elba do a good job with their characters as they do as much professionalism as they can with the material. However, the direction is quite one-note by Hany Abu-Assad that in concentrates more on the build-up to the corny romance rather than surviving for their lives. Plus, even though the dog is cute, there are one too many shots of dog reactions that supply more emotional "Awwws!" than being a necessary character. Actually, I'm against violence towards animals but there is no way that dog could have survived that plane crash. There is great craft in some of the production in terms of cinematography by Mandy Walker and score by Rawin Djawadi but there is not much freshness or edginess to its narrative. The movie relies on manipulating you to feel for them to fall in love and endure the bland romance. They have to remember that they have to get out of the mountains, right? I wished that the director would have stayed on target.

**


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