The Mountain Between Us (2017)

Directed by: Hany Abu-Assad | 103 minutes | action, adventure, drama, romance, thriller | Actors: Idris Elba, Kate Winslet, Beau Bridges, Dermot Mulroney, Linda Sorensen, Vincent Gale, Marci T. House, Dania Nassar, Lee Majdoub, Andres Joseph

Suddenly Sarah Jessica Parker and her husband Matthew Broderick conjured a card with ‘Paradise Now’ (2005) on it from an envelope; Dutch-Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad took home the Golden Globe for best foreign film. It would have been close to winning an Oscar, had it not been for the fact that the South African film ‘Tsotsi’ (2005) threw a spanner in the works. From that moment on, all doors seemed to be wide open for Abu-Assad, but he doesn’t find it easy in Hollywood. During the shooting of the action film ‘The Courier’ (2012) – according to the director himself the worst film he ever made – he got into a fight with a drunk Mickey Rourke. The film did not make it to the cinemas, but was immediately released on DVD. Rourke taught Abu-Assad an important lesson: “Don’t take Hollywood too seriously or they will crush you.” A life lesson richer, the filmmaker returned to what he loves most: writing. And promptly there was a second Oscar nomination, for ‘Omar’ (2013), about a Palestinian freedom fighter who gets into trouble with the Israeli military police after a deadly incident. He wrote the script for that film in just four days. Because Abu-Assad wants to show that he is more than ‘that filmmaker who is committed to the Palestinian cause’, ‘The Idol’ followed in 2015 (about a boy from Gaza who wins ‘Arab Idol’) and in 2017 there is ‘The Mountain Between Us’, a major Hollywood production with none other than Kate Winslet and Idris Elba on the bill. The film was delayed, but Hany Abu-Assad is no longer fooled by Hollywood.

‘The Mountain Between Us’ is based on Charles Martin’s novel of the same name, screenplayed by Chris Weitz (‘About A Boy’, 2002) and J. Mills Goodloe (‘The Age of Adeline’, 2015). Kate Winslet plays Alex Martin, a photojournalist who travels the world to make impressive reports in conflict zones. About to tie the knot with her boyfriend Mark (Dermot Mulroney), she’s on her way to New York, but seems stranded at Boise Airport due to a snowstorm that grounded all (regular) flights. When she hears the story of Ben Bass (Idris Elba), a Baltimore-based British doctor who has to perform urgent surgery but can’t leave just when she can’t leave, she makes him an offer: how would he feel if they could fly a plane together? rent, so that they can still reach their destination on time? Ben agrees and old boss Walter (Beau Bridges) is roped in to transport them. But once they’re in the air, Walter has a stroke. The plane crashes, and Walter does not survive. Alex is badly injured in her leg, Ben’s injuries are not too bad. He connects Alex’s leg (always useful when a doctor is present), but she is not very mobile. And that while they are on top of a snowy mountain top in the Rocky Mountains and civilization is very far away. Despite this, her instinct tells them to abandon the plane—at least, what’s left of it—and look for help. The more conservative Ben, on the other hand, thinks it’s better to wait at the wreck for help. Lack of food and an attack from a hungry cougar force them to investigate. When Alex thinks he can see light in the distance with the telephoto lens of her camera, they get a glimmer of hope. Will they make it out alive?

Anyone who thinks they are dealing with a twenty-first-century version of ‘Alive’ (1993) is mistaken: ‘The Mountain Between Us’ is indeed about stranded airline passengers in an impassable landscape, who have to endure hardships and physical inconveniences as well as natural disasters. (and hungry stomachs). But ‘The Mountain Between Us’ eventually turns into the (inevitable) romance. Because anyone who is freezing cold and more often does not have faith in that everything will turn out well, it is better to cuddle up close to the other person. Although Winslet and Elba have a nice chemistry with each other (you can leave that to such charismatic and talented actors), the romance still feels a bit inappropriate. Can’t they wait until they are safely off that perilous mountain? Moreover, the melodrama of the romance clashes with the sheer urge to survive one should feel in such a situation. In ‘The Mountain Between Us’ we do see the dangers, but we don’t feel them, because every obstacle is stepped over with playful ease (although the film lasts almost two hours). If a great danger looms in one scene, a moment later it has been overcome and the main characters have grown a little closer to each other again. Because that seems to be the only purpose why they are stranded together in the freezing cold, to fall for each other as fast and as hard as possible.

The unbelievability and the imbalance of the script are the biggest pitfalls here, because ‘The Mountain Between Us’ also has a lot of positives. It’s really thanks to the talent of Winslet and Elba that we go along with the story. Their characters are not exactly three-dimensional, but because they are portrayed by such interesting actors, they almost come to life. In addition, they also know how to add some much-needed humor at the right moments. The breathtakingly beautiful nature – filmed in the border area between Alberta and British Columbia in Canada – is captured by Abu-Assad and the Australian cinematographer Mandy Walker so aptly that you also feel yourself stranded in an endless white and inhospitable landscape. Because of those beautiful pictures, we condone the fact that the film actually lasts about twenty minutes too long. Other mistakes, such as the lack of credibility, weigh more heavily in the judgment. ‘The Mountain Between Us’ is not a film that will put Hany Abu-Assad firmly on the map in Hollywood. For that, he better get back into the pen himself, because his own scenarios usually turn out better than when he starts working with someone else’s work. Entertaining is ‘The Mountain Between Us’, if you are willing to let yourself be swept up in the romance. And with Kate Winslet and Idris Elba in the lead roles, most of them should succeed.