I cared more about the dog’s survival than the romance.
Oh, about the film itself? It was alright. Nothing great, nothing bad, a tad lackluster all around. The Mountain Between Us falls a bit flat in the engagement department. There’s nothing new or innovative with the plot—I’ve seen the majority of its story done before (the whole plane crashing scenario reminds me heavily of a scene from A Cry in the Wild)—and the film’s drama, romance, and survival elements lack the necessary energy and passion to make up for such ordinariness. The film’s minimal cast features two great leads: Idris Elba, who is an overall solid actor, and Kate Winslet, who by god do I love. Yet their performances here feel somewhat phoned in, possibly due to the story’s overall generic quality, which is unfortunate as the film could have really used their acting skills at peak condition.
Nonetheless, The Mountain Between Us does nothing to make me mad, or annoyed, or slap my forehead in frustration. There’s nothing great here either, but I’ll take mildly entertained over subpar/bad any day. The film has just enough engaging moments to avoid getting tedious and dull, and I did become slightly more invested in the pair’s romance by its second half. The comedy is infrequent but it makes up in unexpectedness. Long stretches of drama will be suddenly interjected by humorous bits such as Winslet’s character randomly pushing Elba’s into the snow domino-style and her finally trying the candy they saved throughout the entire film only to spit it out in disgust. MAJOR SPOILERS BEGIN: The film’s best comedy bits appear during its finale, where a waitress continuously tries serving the pair during their emotional reunion. Such comedy is made all the more hilarious by how out-of-place it feels in the film’s dramatic conclusion.
I don’t know what spurred the writer to place a dog alongside its lead romance in the frozen mountains of Utah, but the gamble bafflingly paid off. My biggest investment in the film’s story was whether the dog would survive the ordeal. There were about half a dozen instances where I thought the dog was done for—cursing the film during these segments for having such an emotionally manipulative plot element—yet the animal ultimately survives. The Mountain Between Us actually works better viewed as a survival story about two people growing closer to a dopey yet loyal dog, with its more satisfying parts being the pair’s gradual bonding with the mutt. It’s especially touching to see Elba’s character and the dog go from mutual disdain for each other to genuine affection, ending in the film’s true climax where he adopts the dog once the ordeal is over. MAJOR SPOILERS END The Mountain Between Us is one and a half steps above a bad Nicolas Sparks adaptation thanks to its sprinkled about humor, lack of romantic-idiocracy and canine companion. I won’t say it’s worth seeing in theaters, but as a home viewing it’s worth a watch as long as you enjoy standard romance-fantasies and/or dogs.