An average movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but, since it was starring Naomi Watts, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, I always had a weak spot for such minimalistic movies involving only 1 or 2 characters, especially when they are dealing with such survivalist tales. However, in this case, with so few characters involved and so little actually going on, the end-result did feel a little bit dry after all though. In fact, even though Pam Bales was described as a ‘climber’, there was actually no climbing but only some hiking. Sure, it was some high-level hiking and the weather conditions were quite extreme but it was definitely a different vibe than seeing someone climbing some impossible mountains. And yet, there was something intriguing about this tale. Indeed, when I got to see this mysterious man at the top of this mountain, in the middle of some storm, in cross-legged position, wearing only some shorts and some sneakers, it was quite a powerful image. Unfortunately, they wasted too much of the (rather short) running time with such stupid questions like ‘What was he actually doing up there?’. The fact that Pam Bales’s own personal tragedy was revealed much later on was also a mistake and I think it would have worked better if it would have been laid out from the very beginning. I get that, by keeping her background mysterious, they tried to compensate the paper-thin premise but, once again, this approach didn’t really work in my opinion. With ‘John’, it really worked really well to reveal as less as possible, the way he just took off with his car at the end of their ordeal was so unexpected but really neat and I would have actually even removed the scene at the end when they get reunited. Eventually, they focused too much on the survival aspect which was well done but ultimately too generic and predictable instead of focusing on how 2 seemingly seriously depressed people might handle such a hazardous situation. Why do we or should we keep going on no matter how dramatic the circumstances are? It would have been actually pretty interesting to dig further into that but this movie only barely flirted with such ideas and focused instead on this one-woman-show from Naomi Watts and she was actually pretty good but, ultimately, the end-result did feel rather forgettable after all. Anyway, it was still a decent watch though.

6/10