Mills Goodloe ( The Age of Adaline, Everything, Everything), is based on a novel that is itself extremely what about the heart in its tone and, yes, if you think too much-the No. Yes, the film’s script, by Chris Weitz ( About a Boy) and J. Onscreen, this isn’t necessarily as silly as it might sound. “But doctor,” Alex says, as Ben explains the workings of the brain, “ what about the heart?” The Mountain Between Us might have been a tale fit for this age of anxiety about human connection. Ben, a control freak, is withdrawn Alex, the adventurous journalist, cannot understand his reticence. “I need to occupy my amygdala.”) But the lines are also meant to highlight how different-but, just perhaps, how deeply complementary-these two former strangers are. (“It’s Candy Crush,” Ben explains, pre-crash, as to why he’s staring at his phone during the flight. (Water, this being a snow-capped mountain, is fortunately not a problem.) And a lot of dialogue, the conversation of strangers bound with the instant intimacy of shared tragedy. Math done about how many days the three of them might live without food. Fires started with the innards of airplane seats. (And with, fortunately for all involved, Walter’s golden retriever, who has accompanied the group on the flight and who quickly emerges as the real star of this film.)įrom there: a perilous journey. (They will later learn that the tracking device itself has been destroyed in the crash.) And, so, Ben and Alex finally leave the wreckage in search of food and rescue-with only each other to talk to, only each other to rely on. They assume they’ll be found-Walter didn’t file a flight plan there’s a tracking device, however, in the plane’s tail-but the help never comes. They wake up, he with scratches and broken ribs, she with a gaping tear in her thigh, sheltered in the plane, but otherwise isolated in wintry nature. Ben and Alex try to fly the little prop plane themselves they fail. Over at a private hangar, they enlist the help of Walter (Beau Bridges) and his trusty Piper: For $800, they’ll pass over the mountains and into their respective futures.īut then! The first of many twists! As they fly over the snow-covered peaks, as the ominous storm bears down in the distance … Walter has a stroke. So the accidental acquaintances hatch a plan: They’ll charter a flight to Denver and catch connections from there. They’re each desperate to leave, though: Ben, a brain surgeon, needs to get to Baltimore for a surgery he has scheduled for the morning Alex, a photojournalist, needs to get to New York for … her wedding. It goes, at first, like this: Ben (Idris Elba) and Alex (Kate Winslet), in late December, are both stuck in an airport in Idaho in which all flights have been grounded due to an impending storm.

The mountain between us novel