To enjoy yourself at the cinema, all you need is to be convinced that what you’re watching reflects reality. This movie is slow to find its rhythm, but gets there in the end. Seeing Ben and Alex (Idris Elba and Kate Winslet) hastily arranging for a privately owned twin-engine plane to get them out of snow-bound Idaho is clunky in the extreme, with both actors merely going through the motions – it is the sort of preamble that writers just want to get out of the way. When the plane’s pilot (Beau Bridges) has a seizure, they crash in the mountains, but Ben and Alex survive with only cuts and abrasions, as does Dog, the necessarily dead pilot’s golden retriever.
On the slippery slope to schmaltz, the movie returns to plausibility’s realm thanks to the successful pairing of its two stars and the softly-softly directorial hand of Hany Abu-Assad (who gave us the remarkable and similarly humane Paradise Now back in 2005). Ben, a neuro-surgeon, had travelled to Idaho for a medical conference, photo-journalist Alex was flying out for her own wedding. As luck would have it, they packed only the toughest of sub-zero clothing in their carry-on luggage, so when they were exposed to the unforgiving elements they were suitably attired in up-market windcheaters, scarves and beanies. Everything changed (for me) when a cougar stalked the busted fuselage in which Alex and Dog were cuddled while Ben was away scouting. It is a beautifully shot encounter, and it instantly encapsulates the life-and-death struggle that the couple must face in the hostile environment.
Getting to know you ‘in extremis’ is a theme that relies entirely on the withheld stories being worth hearing when they are told, and the personality differences – and in this case racial – being outside of the characters’ points of reference. Winslet, an actress of sublime subtleties, and Elba, the deep-voiced hunk not often given the opportunity to show a gentler side, bring it to a heart-bursting conclusion. And even better, Dog doesn’t die.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
