The plot: Neurosurgeon Ben (Idris Elba) and photojournalist
Alex (Kate Winslet) are both stranded at the airport when their flight is
cancelled. Urgently needing to get back, they take an unchartered flight with
pilot Walter (Beau Bridges). Unfortunately, the storm that cancelled their
original flight hits their new flight and the plane crashes. With Alex terribly
injured, they have to find a way to survive the frozen mountain climate and,
hopefully, make it back home.
Since we’re dealing with a largely two-man
show, save for a brief appearance by Beau Bridges, going over the cast as per
usual is a tad pointless. Instead, I’m going to go over their actual characters
because there’s something very distinct going on here. It’s both one of the
most basic writing conventions possible and
surprisingly thorough as done by this film: The characters offset each other.
Highlighted essentially as a difference in approaching life, Ben is shown as
stable and rather immovable and Alex as restless and needing to move.
Like I said, basic stuff, but where it gets
interesting is how that ends up colouring pretty much everything that takes
place on screen. Some of it is literal, like Ben getting stuck in a bear trap
and literally not being able to go anywhere; some of it is textual, like how
Alex insists on moving around despite spending most of the film with her leg in
a splint; and some of it is subtextual, like Ben being in a marital situation
that he hasn’t come to terms with, meaning that he has yet to ‘move forward’
from it. Rarely do I cover films that show this clear a through line with its
characters, something a bit perplexing considering this is co-written by J.
Mills Goodloe, who gave us not only The Best Of Me but also Everything, Everything. When it comes to romances, nuance isn’t exactly the first thing I
think of where this writer is concerned.
And speaking of romance, this film’s
credibility as a romance is both skewed and quite poignant… I’ll try and
explain. It’s skewed because, for about two-thirds of the film, this is
treated as a survival film with the focus on finding either outside help or
resources to help them live through the day. The use of real locations combined
with Mandy Walker’s cinematography puts the emphasis on how much ground (or
sky, given how high up the mountains are) surrounds them and how much snow is
covering it. It’s a bit surface level, in that the feeling of dread never
really sinks in too deeply, but the intent is quite clear. Then the romantic
angle kicks in properly and the film touches on some rather different ideas.
Part of the usual survival film formula is one or more of the characters shown
believing that there is no chance of rescue and they accept their fate. That’s
shown here, but through the romance, showing two people who seek comfort in
each other’s arms in the face of oblivion. For a story that can get rather
silly in places, that is certainly a change from the usual tripe that gets
served up as romantic.
Not too much of a change, though, as the
attempts to create drama in this film range from contrived-but-excusable to
outright goofiness. Part of that comes from the fact that, in all honesty, Ben
is the character who gets the most development here. Not only that, he gets the
most to the point where Alex doesn’t really have anything to do aside from get
home while hobbling. She needs to get back home to be married; not exactly the
most progressive characterisation I’ve seen, but if they did anything with it
save for the final act, I would accept it. Instead, it just leads to them
taking stock of their feelings next to the reality of the lives they have
returned to, and deciding in rather hilarious fashion (seriously, the ending is one of the hokeyest of any film I’ve yet reviewed), that
they will accept the relationship anyway.
Then again, when dealing with
something that is far more consequence-free than it thinks it is, the stakes
are rather low in that regard. Not only is Alex’s pre-existing relationship
ultimately pointless, other than giving her a motivation to get home (because
just getting out of a life-threatening situation is apparently not enough of a
motivation), Ben’s pre-existing relationship goes through phases… something
that makes even less sense once it is fully revealed. It seriously comes across
like the writers (and presumably the author of the source material, but saying
that would imply that I even knew about the book before this movie came out)
couldn’t decide what version of ex-husband they wanted Ben to be, so they just
used all of them in rather rapid succession. It’s more than a little trite, is
what I’m trying to say.
All in all, while well-acted and containing plenty for the
more critically-inclined to pick at, it’s just okay at the end of the day. As
negative as this review has probably come across, I don’t have any real disdain
for this movie… but no real love either. If you’re a fan of either Winslet or
Elba, it’s worth a watch just to see them on screen once again, but otherwise,
there’s not a whole lot to miss.
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