Photo-journalist, Alex Martin (Kate Winslet) is about to board a flight that’s just been cancelled. She’s en route to her own wedding. Dr. Ben Bass (Idris Elba) is on the same flight. He’s en route to perform emergency surgery on a ten-year old boy. And, like many of us stubborn travelers, we recognize our own determination to get to a destination, despite the challenge of pending storms. Despite consequence.
Walter (Beau Bridges) runs a private charter and can get Alex and Ben to Denver, no problem. Or so he claims. Just say the word!
Word.
But, when something goes terribly wrong – or in other words, never fly in a plane without a co-pilot – our passengers, Alex and Ben find themselves surviving in the depths of the Rocky Mountains.
As the camera pans the majesty of Mother Nature, we are reminded of her brutal voice. We are very small in the massive wilderness.
At a loss for sense of time, and as reality of their situation marinates in their meager existence, Alex and Ben find themselves coping with the emotions of shock, denial, hunger – even humor – and finally fear of the unknown. But, they also find something else….
It’s the fact that they might die together. Two complete strangers. This might be the most intimate experience two people can share; let alone two people with little knowledge of the other. There’s little judgement of the other in times of desperation. There’s also not enough time to ponder and assess good qualities and bad.
Have you ever bonded with someone during a vulnerable situation…breaking down on the side of a road, a turbulence in an airplane, a neighbor who snow plows out your car when you’re stranded in a blizzard, arms waving overhead, in zero-visibility? In that moment, that person is all that exists. They’re your hero. And then, problem solved…life goes back to normal.
As the two navigate storms, nostril-freezing temps and mountain lions, their uncommon bond also reflects a certain fear of going back to the ‘real’ world without each other. What then?
In PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) comes all types of emotions that only two survivors can understand. There’s an incubation, like on the inside of a snow globe as the rest of the world stays on its exterior. And that’s where this movie’s strength rises to its romantic occasion. Can the two live without one another in the aftermath?
See if the chemistry of Winslet and Elba can endure, and definitely see this movie.
Three and a half tiaras