How much time do you want to spend with Idris Elba and Kate Winslet on a mountain? That’s the only question you need to ask yourself here. “I’d listen to Morgan Freeman read the phone book!” is a common refrain, but would you? Would you really? I bet it’d be kinda boring.
That was my concern going into The Mountain Between Us, which follows brain surgeon Ben (Idris Elba) and photojournalist Alex (Kate Winslet), two strangers who impulsively charter a plane to get around an airline cancellation and then promptly crash on a mountain. Elba and Winslet are both supremely talented actors, but do I really want to spend 100 minutes watching them brood and bicker and forage for kindling? Well… yes, actually.