What could possibly go wrong with Kate Winslet and Idris Elba fighting to stay alive in the elements? (A lot, it turns out.) ).
I did not hate The Mountain Between Us. Until the very last scene of the film, that is, when a scene so shockingly ridiculous that it rendered all the merely not-very-good scenes that had come before it completely, and finally, unforgivable, I did not detest it as much as many others rightfully did—I did not find it irredeemably treacly or irrevocably dumb. I won’t give anything away, but I will say that The Mountain Between Us’s final moments rival those of mother! and that, up until then, the movie had been a compelling jumble of genres (survival adventure, competence porn, rom-com, celebration of the human spirit, etc.). revealed itself for what it is, and in fact for what it had been, all along, in poor disguise: a Hallmark holiday film that just so happens to start with a plane crash. Meet-Cute on a Mountain. When Harry Met Sally, with the exception that the only thing on the menu is flame-grilled mountain lion, he will undoubtedly order what she is having.
At first, it goes like this: In late December, Idris Elba’s character Ben and Kate Winslet’s character Alex are both stranded in an Idaho airport where all flights have been grounded because of an approaching storm. However, they are both eager to get away: Alex, a photojournalist, needs to get to New York for… her wedding; Ben, a brain surgeon, needs to get to Baltimore for a surgery he has scheduled for the morning. Therefore, the chance acquaintances come up with a plan: they’ll charter a flight to Denver and then connect there. They enlist Walter (Beau Bridges) and his dependable Piper at a private hangar: For $800, they will fly over the mountains and into their respective futures.
Walter suffers a stroke as they fly over the snow-covered peaks and as the menacing storm bears down in the distance. Ben and Alex fail when they attempt to fly the small prop plane themselves. They crash, violently. They awaken, protected inside the plane but otherwise alone in the icy wilderness, with her having a gaping tear in her thigh and him having scratches and broken ribs. Walter didn’t submit a flight plan, but the plane does have a tracking device in the tail, so they assume they’ll be found. However, help never materializes. (They will discover later that the crash actually destroyed the tracking device itself.) Ben and Alex finally escape the wreckage in search of food and assistance, having each other as their only source of communication and their sole source of support. (And with Walter’s golden retriever, who has traveled with the group and quickly turns out to be the real star of this movie, which is fortunate for everyone involved. ).
From there: a perilous journey. A fight to survive. Fires started with the innards of airplane seats. A tussle with a hungry cougar. Calculations were made regarding how long the three of them might go without food. (Water is fortunately not an issue because this mountain is covered in snow. There was also a lot of conversation between strangers that was bonded by their shared tragedy. The lines are often quite awkward. Ben explains, prior to the crash, that he is playing Candy Crush on his phone while on the flight. “I need to occupy my amygdala. However, the lines also serve to emphasize how different—yet, perhaps even more importantly, how profoundly complementary—these two former strangers are. Ben, a control freak, is distant, and Alex, the daring journalist, finds it difficult to understand why. She speaks in Hallmark lines. They both do. The Mountain Between Us might have been a story appropriate for this time of anxiety about human connection, as Alex asks Ben as he explains how the brain functions, “But doctor, what about the heart?”
Onscreen, this isn’t necessarily as silly as it might sound. Yes, Chris Weitz (About a Boy) and Jill Soloway’s script for the movie The Age of Adaline, Everything, Everything, by Mills Goodloe is based on a book that is extremely heartfelt in tone; and, yes, if you think too much—the No. When watching a movie like this, one rule is to never think too much because you will start to wonder things like: Why, if you were the pilot of the plane, wouldn’t you file a flight plan? Why, if you were the fiancé, wouldn’t you tell your fiancé about your plans to charter a small prop plane over stormy mountains on the day before your wedding? Does the dog ever get hungry or cold? How would the dog have survived the plane crash that humans, strapped
The main query, however, is stated in the movie’s promotional materials: “What if your survival depended on a stranger?” It’s a good question, too, with a lot of room for a movie interpretation; the sort that makes you wonder if The Mountain Between Us is a cross between Alive and Cast Away and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. A story that could have served as a parable for people’s shared responsibilities to one another in a situation with its own life-and-death stakes would have been appropriate for this age of anxiety about human connection had The Mountain Between Us been made differently. (Its director, Hany Abu-Assad, also produced the Oscar-nominated films Paradise Now and Omar, each of which was a meditation on these issues in its own unique way.) ).
There is a lot to like about The Mountain Between Us even though it isn’t any of those things: the gorgeous scenery (Beau Bridges’s pilot Walter refers to it as “a million miles of pure-ass nature”), the excellent direction, The swaying pine trees that bring both literal and metaphorical sap The breath-taking dramatic moments: sliding down mountain sides and diving into icy waters The striking similarity between Ben and Alex and Idris Elba and Kate Winslet Elba in particular is a charismatic presence on screen, and both actors exhibit slow-burning chemistry that develops as their characters do. Sure, Meet-Cute on a Mountain is a jumble of genres. Yes, it is clunkily written. Yes, Kate Winslet’s American accent is not terribly American. But, hey. If a movie welcomes you into the theater and offers you 103 minutes of gorgeously snow-capped escape, you can forgive it a lot.
But then: that ending. The ending assumes that you, as a viewer, are denser and dumber than you are, revealing the paltriness of this film’s ambitions and reminding you how terribly these two exceptional actors, over those 103 minutes of screen time, have been wasted. I will simply conclude this by advising you to skip The Mountain Between Us because endings matter. Watch a Hallmark movie if you want to be spoiled instead.
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Does the dog die in the mountain between us?
The Dog, a Very Good Boy, Who Lives Between Us, The Mountain Wants You to Know, Survives Such a good boy. Often a Very Good Boy, the death of a dog on-screen is a contentious plot device. The Mountain Between Us has responded by releasing a teaser trailer that clarifies that the dog in fact does not pass away.
How old is Kate Winslet now?
You find out at the very end that he and his wife are still together. He holds himself responsible for her passing away while carrying his twins. It’s beautifully described in the book and takes you by surprise.
FAQ
Does anyone die in The Mountain Between Us?
Afterwards, Ben tells Alex about his wife. They were wed for eight years, and her name was Sarah. When they realized she had a brain tumor and had to leave him because he couldn’t control it, she died.
Is there a dog in The Mountain Between Us?
Idris Elba and Kate Winslet play a surgeon and a journalist, respectively, who survive a plane crash and wind- and weather-beaten stranding in the High Uintas Wilderness
How did the book The Mountain Between Us End?
When Ashley visits Ben’s house after they return home and he shows her the twins’ and Rachel’s graves, she doesn’t learn that Rachel has passed away. Due to a partial abruption she experienced during her pregnancy, Rachel passed away.
Does the dog die in the movie dog 2022?
Dog lovers can relax: The dog featured prominently in the film Dog does not pass away. In fact, when co-director and star Channing Tatum and longtime friend and Magic Mike co-worker Reid Carolin set out to make the movie, they immediately ruled out dog deaths.