“The Mountain Between Us” is a survival drama that should work. It has a strong cast, a premise built around isolation and trust, and a setting that offers plenty of visual spectacle. Instead, the film settles for a slow, repetitive crawl through the High Uintas Wilderness that never quite finds the emotional stakes it promises. At 109 minutes, it feels far longer than it has any right to be.
Idris Elba plays Dr. Ben Bass, a neurosurgeon whose emergency surgery appointment in Baltimore depends on getting to Denver. Kate Winslet plays Alex Martin, a photojournalist heading to her own wedding in New York. They are stranded after their private pilot, Walter (Beau Bridges), suffers a fatal stroke mid-flight and crashes on a mountaintop. A dog survives the crash too, and the three face harsh weather, injuries, and the realization that help is not coming.
The film is based on the 2011 novel of the same name by Charles Martin. It premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2017, and reached theaters in the United States on October 6, 2017, through 20th Century Fox. With a budget of $35 million, it earned $62 million worldwide.
Trailer, via 20th Century Studios.
Crash and Aftermath
The first act moves at a deliberate pace. Elba and Winslet establish their characters through small conversations about family, work, and the reasons they are rushing to their destinations. Dermot Mulroney appears briefly as Alex’s fiancé, Mark Robertson, giving Winslet someone to worry about back in New York. The film then shifts to Walter, who has not filed a flight plan, suffering a stroke mid-flight. The plane crashes on a mountaintop in the High Uintas Wilderness.
Ben, Alex, and the dog survive. Alex injures her leg badly, and Ben tends to her cuts and her injured knee. He buries the pilot while she is unconscious. Once she wakes, she thinks Ben has a better chance of finding help if he leaves her behind. He refuses. The two are stranded for days with dwindling supplies.
The pacing here is the problem. The film spends too much time showing Ben and Alex walking, sitting, and waiting for rescue that never arrives. The camera lingers on their faces as they stare at the mountain, and the repetition starts to wear thin. There is a scene where Ben climbs a ridge to look for a road and sees nothing but more mountains, barely avoiding falling down the side. It is tense for a moment, but it is also a beat the film returns to again and again.
Winslet and Elba try to carry the weight. Winslet plays Alex with a brittle determination, and Elba plays Ben with a quiet resolve. Their chemistry is genuine, but it gets lost in the fog of the film’s middle stretch. The dog adds some warmth, but its presence is limited, and the animal’s fate is resolved without much ceremony.
Cougar, Beacon, and Cave
Alex grows skeptical that they will be rescued. Ben still wants to wait with the plane’s wreckage, but he agrees to climb the ridge again. This time, he sees nothing but more mountains. Alex listens to a message from Ben’s wife saying, “I’m glad to have had this time with you.” The message lands as a cruel irony, since the film is built around the idea that being stuck in the wilderness is the worst thing that could happen to them.
Then comes the cougar. The big cat attacks the dog, and Alex shoots a flare at it, killing the animal. Ben tends to the dog’s wounds. The two argue about whether to wait for rescue or descend the mountain to find help or a phone signal. Alex starts a lone descent. Ben catches up, and together they locate the tail end of the plane, where they find a beacon — but it is smashed.
“I’m glad to have had this time with you.”
That line sums up the film’s central tension. The characters are supposed to find meaning in their shared struggle, but the script keeps telling them to keep waiting for rescue.
They hike down to the tree-line and spend the night in a cave. Alex, using her telephoto lens, thinks she sees a cabin. At the same time, Alex falls into freezing water. Ben comes across the empty cabin and pulls her out, but she remains unconscious.
Long Road Home
The final stretch of the film picks up a little momentum. The two are now moving toward something, even if it is just a cabin that turns out to be empty. The chase sequence, where Alex falls and Ben saves her, is the most dynamic part of the whole movie. It is a brief burst of energy in a film that otherwise moves at a crawl.
But the ending is a letdown. The cabin is empty, and the film does not know what to do with it. Ben and Alex continue their journey, and the film ends with them walking away from the wreckage, having survived. It is a hollow victory, because the film never lets them confront what they have learned about themselves.
Lead Casting Changes
The film’s troubled production history is worth noting. It went through several lead casting changes before settling on Elba and Winslet. In March 2012, Michael Fassbender was attached to play Bass, but he dropped out by September 2014 due to a scheduling conflict. Charlie Hunnam replaced him, and Margot Robbie came on board to play Alex. Robbie dropped out in November 2014, and Rosamund Pike entered negotiations for the lead role. Both Hunnam and Pike dropped out in December 2015. Elba came on board in February 2016, followed by Winslet in June 2016. Mulroney joined the cast as Winslet’s character’s fiancé in early February 2017.
That history shows in the finished product. The film feels like a movie that was rewritten multiple times, with scenes that point to directions the script never follows through.
Slow Burn That Never Ignites
“The Mountain Between Us” is not a bad film, but it is a frustrating one. The premise is strong, and the performances are solid, but the execution is uneven. The film spends too much time showing the characters wandering around the wilderness without giving them enough to talk about. When it finally gets around to the cabin and the chase, it delivers the best moments of the movie.
The film’s tagline asks, “What if your life depended on a stranger?” It is a good question, but the film never fully answers it. Ben and Alex are forced to rely on each other, but the film never explores what that reliance means beyond physical survival. The romance is there, but it is underdeveloped, and the film’s insistence on dragging its feet keeps it from landing.
The film’s failure is structural. It is a survival story that refuses to commit to the survival. It is a disaster movie that refuses to commit to the disaster. The result is a film that is neither compelling nor coherent.
“The Mountain Between Us” is a film that wants to be a classic survival tale, but it never finds the discipline to become one. It is a slow burn that never ignites. The performances are wasted on a script that does not know what it wants to say.
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