Film Review: The Mountain Between Us (USA, 2017) is a romantic survival tale submerged in cheese

WARNING: This review may contain heavy traces of cheese.

Before I start off this review, let me just make this one thing clear. I do like romantic films. This year alone, we have great films like Their Finest, The Big Sick, Our God’s Country and Call Me By Your Name. As much as I cannot stand overstated, implausible films of its ilk, I do understand why people do like them. It’s a fantasy and if there’s an audience for overstated, implausible action films, why can’t we have an audience for the former?

In the case of my expectations of The Mountain Between Us, they were kept in moderation. Having a romance set in a survival story is nothing new; especially when Kate Winslet is in one of the most popular films ever made about that. But it does lend a different twist to the genre and with director Hana Abal-Assad, Kate Winslet and Idris Elba on-board, it could be a worthwhile trip.

But the last romantic film I’ve seen with Winslet was the excremental Labor Day, a film so borderline moronic and illogical that it made me squeamish every time I looked at pies. But The Mountain Between Us can’t be as bad as that. Can it?

The film starts off with Alex (Kate Winslet), a headstrong and reckless photojournalist who is rushing at the airport, struggling to get back to her fiance (human wardrobe Dermot Mulroney) on time for her wedding day. There she meets Ben (Idris Elba), a cautious, methodical surgeon who needs to get back home in time to initiate an emergency operation for a 10-year old boy.

Noticing the similar predicaments, Alex devises a solution and invites Ben to board a charter plane, with Walter (Beau Bridges) as the pilot and his pet dog as the co-pilot. As they are on the way home, the plane crashes in remote, snowy terrain. Having very little supplies and even a lesser chance of help arriving, the two go on a perilous journey for survival, along with something more.

Like preparing for a perilous journey, let’s start with the positives. The cinematography by fellow Australian Mandy Walker (who’s worked on a similar survival story Tracks, among others) is terrific. The million miles of pure-ass nature (a line in the film, believe it or not) are captured beautifully and makes it easy to believe that it would be a torture for anyone to trek through. Speaking of torture, the plane crash itself is very well-executed, as the editing is seamless as well as the special effects employed.

And like embracing death during the perilous journey, we get to the negatives, and there’s a mountain-load of them. The biggest one is the incredibly problematic and frankly cheesy script by Chris Weitz and J. Mills Goodloe. The willing suspension of disbelief was shaken as soon as I heard Beau Bridges‘ voice as Walter. No one in their right mind would believe that he would be in good health to fly a plane. And the fact that he didn’t devise a flight-plan beforehand was just a honking siren for danger. But wait, there’s more!

How does the dog keep surviving the long journey through the snow without as much as an iota of frostbite? How does Alex’s leg lose swelling through the ice-cold journey? And what about Ben’s leg cut that bears no ill will to him whatsoever? And the list of unbelievable moments goes on and on and on. It’s almost as if the writers sprinkled Parmesan cheese all over it.

Speaking of unbelievable (and cheese), the dialogue is so laughable and out of this world that it would make the staff at Hallmark fall on the floor, laughing hysterically. With zingers like “I feel alive!”, “I need to occupy my amygdala” and “What about the heart?”, the film makes it head-bangingly obvious that the characters are different from each other. There’s even a moment where a recorder is used to communicate to the audience that Ben likes being in control.

And then there’s the cast. Despite the arctic setting, the only thing in the film that’s frozen is the chemistry between the two leads. They have absolutely no heat or believable passion that not even the cheese in the film can melt the ice. And what’s worse is that the transition from survival story to romantic tale is so mechanical that you can actually pinpoint the starting position where the romance starts (Minor spoiler: it’s when Alex pushes Ben to the ground).

Speaking of mechanical, the moments of tension and thrills in the film feel like they were just bolted in just in case the film lost the attention of the audience. It doesn’t help that the characters never really feel like they’re in real mortal danger. A cliff fall here, a water dive there, a mountain lion from behind; the only reason that the audience would feel any sympathy for the characters is because they’re played by Kate Winslet and Idris Elba.

Winslet is really trying her best in a difficult role, but she only ends up being difficult and really trying. Elba lends presence and credibility to the character of Ben but he could only take it so far, as the incredibly sloppy script is concerned. Funnily enough, the press notes actually say that Ben is smart as he is handsome. That basically sums up the effort that went to the script.

But even after all of that, that’s just the cheese of the stuffed crust. The last 20 minutes of the film is where the story basically turns into a tidal wave of cheese that would have swarm upon swarm of rats running in the cinema to jump on the screen. In other words, the supposed romantic tension, the awful dialogue and quite possibly the funniest final shot of the year cap the film not as a romantic drama, but a romantic comedy.

And just hypothetically speaking of the former, if you were to choose between an actor that acts like a tree (Dermot Mulroney) or an actor that is basically built like a tree (Idris Elba), who would you choose? That basically sums up the level of romantic tension in the film.

And as much as the critically acclaimed Assad, Winslet and Elba can do with their efforts, the only thing between them and the audience is a mountain of cheese. With the script on top.

Oh and one more thing, the film is better than Labor Day… but only because it’s funnier.

Review Score: ONE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)

The Mountain Between Us is in cinemas now

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Harris Dang

Rotten Tomatoes-approved Film Critic. Also known as that handsome Asian guy you see in the cinema with a mask on.