In her American debut, Małgorzata Szumowska combines psychological drama with a classic survival film, but ultimately, 'Infinite Storm' disappoints with its psychological banality and dramatic emptiness.
Pam Bales is 53 years old. She lives alone in a house at the foot of the White Mountains. The empty house is filled with memories, climbing equipment and a few photographs showing two little girls. Soon they all become part of a cinematic story of trauma and survival. During a solitary, therapeutic hike to the summit of Mount Washington, Pam encounters an unnamed man. He is freezing cold, wearing trainers and a summer jacket – he is doomed to die. To save him from freezing, Pam decides to bring him to the foot of the mountain.
It is a story that really happened and in 2010 became the subject of an article published by Ty Gagne in Reader’s Digest. It was based on it and Josh Rollins wrote his debut screenplay about trying to cope with loss.
This is where the truth of life ends and the sad truth of the screen begins, which exposes the weakness of the story. Szumowska and Rollins base their film on the scheme of a classic ‘survival movie’ – here the protagonists’ lives are at stake, and the most important dramatic question is whether Pam and her companion will manage to descend the dangerous mountain. This storyline, although simple, has in the past been the basis of several outstanding films (such as John Boorman’s masterpiece Deliverance), or at least very successful ones (127 Hours by Danny Boyle). Unfortunately, Infinite Storm does not repeat their success, as its makers do not allow the film to transcend genre limitations and reach for ripped clichés. Infinite Storm is simply boring. Mainly because Szumowska does not allow the viewer to identify with the heroine (as the makers of Baltasar Kormákur’s Everest did, for example). We know very little about the cinematic Pam, and the filmmakers do nothing to make us like her. And although Infinite… could still be a good action film, Szumowska seems to despise adventure cinema too much to imbue her picture with simple adventures that would add dynamism to the story.
The Polish director mixes psychological drama with survivalist cinema without placing a strong emphasis on either of them. The result is a film that is ghastly dull, and a struggle for survival that is just as dramatic in the cinema seat as it is on the screen. For there is little, not to say nothing, going on in Infinite Storm. The weakened ‘John’ keeps falling and doubting, while the indomitable Pam keeps picking him up from his fall and urging him to fight for his life. After thirty minutes of falls and persuasion, all we dream of is for the characters to simply let go of their fight for survival and freeze with dignity on the slope, thus freeing us from their story. Or at least for a plot twist that would make us believe that anyone is in control of it.
Picture display
standardowy [760 px]
'Infinite Storm', directed by: Małgorzata Szumowska, 2022, photo: Gutek Film
Although Szumowska’s American debut is disappointing, this does not mean that there are no strong elements in it. One of them is Naomi Watts, a celebrated and talented actress who not only plays the main character, but also becomes its producer. The star of Mulholland Drive does her best to create a moving portrait on screen, but is doomed to fail because her creation lacks foundations. The film’s Pam is a character made of paper; she is a concept, not a living flesh-and-blood heroine of small gestures and internal contradictions. Because Szumowska and Rollins don’t care about the real heroine, but about a fabricated story of redemption and mourning, of loss and the search for balance. This is mainly why their film leaves the viewer indifferent. This is not changed even by Michał Englert’s cinematography, which – as usual in the case of films made with Szumowska – skilfully balances on the boundary separating aesthetics of frames and film kitsch, making Infinite Storm a satisfying film on the level of an image.
However, it is far from fulfilling. By embarking on her expatriate career and reaching for texts written by other auteurs, Szumowska has lost what made her best films special – a sense of humour. Both the bloated The Other Lamp and the dull Infinite Storm do not have even a trace of the intellectual perversity we found in Body or 33 Scenes from Life. If this was the price the Polish director had to pay for her American debut, it turned out to be very high. Let us only hope that soon Szumowska will be given the chance to make a Hollywood film on her own terms and that we will again hear her distinctive tone, which has made her one of the most recognisable personalities of Polish cinema.
Embeded gallery style
display gallery as slider
Infinite Storm
Directed by Małgorzata Szumowska.
Screenwriting: Josh Rollins.
Cinematography: Michal Englert.
Starring: Naomi Watts, Billy Howle, Denis O’Hare, Patrick Sawyers.
Distribution: Gutek Film.
Premiere: 27.05.2022.
