INFINITE STORM (AMAZON PRIME) (2022)

SYNOPSIS: When a climber gets caught in a blizzard, she encounters a stranded stranger and must get them both down the mountain before nightfall...

MOVIE REVIEW:

Naomi Watts has survived a tsunami, befriend a gigantic gorilla and nurses a magpie all onscreen and now she is battling against mother nature again in Infinite Storm.

Watts plays Pam Bales, right from the beginning we know her as an expert in outdoor mountain climbing as she lays out all the gears she need for her hike up New Hampshire’s Mount Washington. She stops for a quick coffee top up at the camp lodge and from her conversation with the owner, we knew of an impending storm but that’s not going to stop Pam’s planned activity of the day.

Thus with minimal to no dialogue and the occasional howling windy sound effects, we follow Pam as she hikes towards her destination. Soon, she finds herself falling into a small crack though she manages to crawl out of it in the end.

Pam’s supposedly routine hike took another detour as she realises there is a man perched on the edge wearing shorts and sneakers probably suffering from frostbite and hypothermia as well. As a responsible member of the search and rescue team, Pam decides to drag this man whom she called “John” down the mountain despite his unwillingness to be rescue.

While it is based on the true story of Pam Bales, Infinite Storm suffers from a seemingly lack of direction. As a survival, disaster story sets in a vast frozen landscape, the cinematography did more than a decent job capturing both the beauty and cruelty of the alps. There’s obviously the numerous hurdles and obstacles faced as the duo tries to make their way down to civilization. No doubt Polish director Malgorzata Szumowska did a fantastic job setting up the survival part of the narrative.

But there’s more to Pam’s story that Szumowska and screenwriter Joshua Rollins wishes to explore but fails miserably. Specifically, there’s the grief issue and personal demons that Pam and John are battling at the same time. Unfortunately, there’s not enough backstory to justify their individual actions in the movie. A brief talky scene at the lodge feels more perfunctory than well-meaning that you don’t particularly feel empathized for their predicaments.

Thus is Infinite Storm, the true survival story of Pam Bales deserved to be told? While we give full marks to Watts’ performance and the intensity of the first half however the intended messages are buried under an avalanche of flimsy preaching and paper thin drama.

MOVIE RATING:

Review by Linus Tee