In the comment thread for last night’s “Save Idris Elba“post, I was beaten up for saying that Kate Winslet‘s performance as a photojournalist in The Mountain Between Us (which of course is composed of her own personality and psyche) was not, in my estimation, an attractive component in the midst of the life-of-death survival struggle in the Rocky Mountains. I said that it seemed ill-advised for Idris Elba‘s surgeon character to fall for an obviously contentious and difficult woman under such circumstances. I expanded upon this a couple of hours ago:

“I’m sure Winslet is fine and gracious and ‘attractive’ when you get to know her, but to me she seems, under the guise of her photojournalist character, like a stressed and prickly lady with all the usual issues and baggage that any 42 year-old, Type-A personality has acquired, and that in the middle of a survive-or-die ordeal in rugged snowy mountain terrain THE LAST THING you’d want to add to your already-heavy backpack is a romantic relationship with a woman who is clearly a hive of thorns and contrary opinions and anxieties and skittish mannerisms and so on. NO DAY AT THE BEACH. Life is short, survival in the mountains is hard enough…later.

“I’m married to a ravishing 40-plus woman who has her particular issues like anyone else, but she doesn’t exude those jagged-edge anxiety vibes. I have enough of those on my own, thanks.”