There’s a sparky and entertaining opening act to this romance-disaster movie, adapted by Chris Weitz and J Mills Goodloe from the novel by Charles Martin, and directed by Hany Abu-Assad, who gave us the challenging Palestinian movie Paradise Now in 2005. But after the main event, it becomes anticlimactic, even slightly dull, and in the final 10 minutes it fudges an emotional problem.
Kate Winslet plays Alex, a camera-wielding photojournalist whose work has appeared in the Guardian; she is rushing home to get married, but is stuck in an airport where storm warnings have cancelled all flights. So is surgeon Dr Ben Bass (Idris Elba), who needs to go to this same destination to perform an urgent operation. Resourceful, gutsy Alex approaches Ben with an idea: they can together charter a small plane, piloted by crusty old-timer Walter (Beau Bridges). But once they’re flying over the breathtaking mountain landscape, the storm moves in and they are soon in a terrible situation.
Elba and Winslet give it their frowning and emoting best, getting actorishly in each other’s eyelines. There’s a hair-raising scene with a cougar. But I never fully believed in their danger or their emotional connection. The drama has a soft, even tame landing.
