BEFORE: September is half over, but it's really time to start thinking about the end of the year, how am I going to end this Movie Year? After Halloween I don't have a plan, I don't even have a concept of a plan. Well, that's got to change today, I decided, I picked the two Christmas movies I want to see the most and started linking backwards, also found the fastest way from my last October film to my ONE Thanksgiving movie, and it's only three steps, so it looks like I'll be taking almost all of November off from movies. Well, some sacrifice needs to be made. So I linked a little forward from Thanksgiving, and what do you know? The two chains met in the middle. Now I didn't hit the number spot-on, I was short by two - but there's time to add some filler, one more October movie that's not really horror, and I was kind of on the fence about it, and steal another Mel Gibson movie from that chain over there, and BOOM, I'm right on the money.
Now, things could still change, I'm not locked in, but the NUMBER of films is locked in, so from now on if I want to add something at the last minute, something else has to be dropped, like the middle film from a three-film chain, that's exactly WHY I try to get more than two films with the same actor together, it gives me a little flexibility when things get too crowded. SO now I have a plan, there's still time to tinker with it, but I know I"m going to make it to Christmas (there's a bonus THIRD Christmas movie I was able to drop in once I had these links) so there you go, let's get those Halloween and/or Christmas decorations up and start moving toward the end of 2024. Oh, right, the election. Well I"m not going to watch "Swing Vote" or anything dumb like that, I'll just make sure my schedule is clear to spend a few hours in line on Election Day, but other than that, let's get ready for All Hallow's Christmas Eve!
Tonight's film is about someone stuck in winter weather, maybe that will help get me in the mindset, though it is 80 degrees out, and we haven't seen a solid snowstorm in NYC for a couple winters now. Anyway, Naomi Watts is really having a good year, she carries over again from "Ophelia" and I'll see her again in October, hint hint.
THE PLOT: When a climber gets caught in a blizzard, she encounters a stranded stranger and must get them both down the mountain before nightfall.
AFTER: It's a very simple film, really, set on New Hampshire's Mount Washington, which is the highest peak in the northeast United States. I remember going there at least once as a teenager, and those bumper stickers that say "This car climbed Mt. Washington" were always prevalent in Massachusetts, where I grew up. So I always wondered, if you can drive up the mountain, why on earth would anyone want to hike up to the top? Maybe the car can only take you so far?
Anyway, this is the true story of Pam Bales, a search-and-rescue volunteer who frequently climbs the mountain, just in case someone gets hurt or stranded on the mountain or needs medical assistance. And one day during a terrible sudden storm she herself falls in a crevasse, it's quite a chore for her to get herself free, and she's a professional. Then later she encounters a man near the top of the mountain who's not wearing proper clothing, and he's in sneakers, not hiking boots. Worse, he's zoned out and possibly frost-bitten, and seems to be willing to just sit there as the storm rolls in. Pam tries to help him but he's unresponsive, and then even when he wakes up due to her rubbing his limbs to warm them up, he thwarts every attempt she makes to get him down the mountain to safety. If this is one of those "What could possibly go wrong" storylines, the answer is everything, everything goes wrong.
He's got frostbite, he moves intentionally in the wrong direction, he jumps off a small cliff and hurts his leg. It's almost like he doesn't want to be rescued. No, it's exactly like he doesn't want to be rescued. Can you imagine a firetruck coming to your burning house and you do everything in your power to stop them from putting out the fire? It makes no sense, but she only knows she has to get him down below the treeline before dark, and then they can figure out the rest later.
During the ordeal, Pam has a number of flashbacks that don't seem to make sense, they show her on a snowy day with two young daughters, brushing their hair and watching as they make heart designs on the fogged-up windows. But we saw Pam waking up and getting ready for work, it sure looked like she lived alone. Eventually it's explained that there was a tragedy in her life, and so she seems to be a grief-stricken survivor, and so maybe she understands a little more about a suicidal hiker than others might. So the story isn't just about saving someone's life, it's (eventually) about learning what brought them up to that mountain on that day in the first place.
That's it, that's the whole story, figuring out why people act they way they do when they're plagued with grief. Perhaps Pam has this job for the same reason, it gave her something to do while she was working through her own grief, it's her own form of therapy and if she can save even just one person, then it's worth doing. And maybe this encounter with another troubled soul gave her more insight into her own situation, so in the end they don't really know who saved who.
They didn't film the movie in New Hampshire, though, they filmed it in Slovenia - so anyone who's familiar with Mt. Washington would know immediately that it looks wrong here, because that's not the right mountain. Apparently only hard-core mountaineers went to see this movie, it took in only $750,000 and cost twice that to make. Well, I guess that's one way to make sure your movie ends up on Hulu and not Netflix, it's kind of damaged goods. Really, I just came here for the linking, I needed to end this Naomi Watts chain with something that would get me back to school-based films for September, as it was way too early to link to a horror movie like "The Ring". But don't worry, I'm gonna get there, just by another way.
Also starring Billy Howie (last seen in "The Seagull"), Denis O'Hare (last seen in "Lizzie'), Parker Sawyers (last seen in "The Mummy" (2017)), Eliot Sumner (last seen in "No Time to Die'), Joshua Rollins, Arya Petric, Lina Kolenko.
RATING: 5 out of 10 pairs of socks
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