Pam Bales makes her mountain trek regularly. It’s tougher now that she’s in her 50s. But it’s necessary. And it’s definitely cheaper than therapy.
The past weighs on Pam. Losses, agonies, choices made. They don’t go away. But up on the peaks of New England’s White Mountain National Forest, Pam can vent everything she feels. She can push her muscles, her body, her mind and cry out her anger. And the mountains never talk back, which is exactly how Pam prefers it.
Even on days like today—when weather reports suggest it might get a bit messy in the mountains—Pam presses forward. She needs it. Besides, she was part of a mountain search-and-rescue team for many years. She’s no lightweight. She’ll know if it gets to be too much.
And indeed, it gets to be a bit much.
The storm comes in with thunder and lightning, gale winds and snow. Pam is prepared though. Her pack is filled with all the right supplies, food, fluids, boot cleats, clothing layers. She’ll push on a bit farther.
But then she hears a cry drift to her on the howling wind. At least she thought it was a cry. She remembers another lone vehicle in the parking lot below. But would some random hiker be foolish enough to be up here in this stuff?
Then she sees the sneaker prints in the deepening snow. Sneakers! What can this idiot be thinking? Then she spots the sneakers wearer. He’s slumped over on a ridge being buffeted by the icy torrent, dressed in a light coat and … shorts?!
Pam leaps into action. The man—she calls him John since he’s barely coherent—is nearly frozen. His legs are purple, his breath almost non-existent. She strips off his soaked-through garments, wraps him in an emergency plastic bag to raise his body temperature. Then she starts plotting their journey back down.
If they don’t make it back below the tree line before dark they’ll both freeze to death. John, however, refuses to help. Refuses to walk. It’s all up to Pam.
It’s going to be difficult. The snow blows sideways, making it hard to breathe.
But Pam Bales has never been one to give up. And she won’t start now.
Because of John’s own bullheaded choices, horrible things happen to the sneaker-clad hiker after Pam dresses him properly and starts dragging him down the hill. But Pam refuses to let the man give up. She repeatedly rescues him and puts her own life on the line to save his.
Later we find out that John was in the mountains because of his grief—something similar to the loss, guilt and grief Pam struggles with herself. John eventually thanks Pam for her heroic efforts to keep him alive. He asks her if the pain he’s feeling will ever get better and she assures him that surviving is well worth the effort.
“Even in the storm, even in the pain and the wind, there’s so much beauty,” she tells him. And it becomes clear that their mutual struggle to stay alive has stirred Pam and made a difference in her thinking. Pam flashes back to moments when she played with and hugged her two young daughters.
As Pam begins climbing the mountain trail she recites a quote by author and environmental activist Edward Abbey: “We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to go there. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope.”
The film isn’t overtly spiritual. But you could look at the beauty of the mountain ranges—filmed so vividly here—and think of God’s glorious creation. In like manner, you could say that Pam’s unwavering actions to save John, no matter the cost, was an inherently godly drive and desire.
Pam has to take off John’s wet clothes to wrap him in plastic and raise his body heat—stripping him to his underwear. Later, after returning home, Pam undresses for a bath. She stands totally naked for a moment before climbing into the tub and weeping. The camera views her full profile (from the side) and then examines the large bruises all over her legs.
We see Pam in a sports-bra-like top two other times.
As the storm ramps up, Pam falls through the crust of the snow and finds herself in a 12-foot-deep hole. She tries several times to climb out before finally succeeding—thumping herself around and lacerating her hands and fingers with each attempt and fall.
[Spoiler Warning] When Pam finds John, the camera looks at his frostbitten feet and legs—purple from the cold. He later rebels against Pam’s help, throwing himself off a rocky ledge. His actions are an attempted suicide, but he survives, his legs scraped, slashed open and bleeding. He falls in a rushing river and again survives after Pam pulls him, gasping and vomiting, out of the frozen water. With each new fall and tumble down the steep mountain side, the two become further lacerated and exhausted, eventually making it to safety where John, once again runs off.
In flashback we see Pam cradle her dead daughters after they have died from a gas leak in their cabin. (Pam survived because of an open window near her.) We’re told of someone else’s untimely death and the fact that John’s trip to the mountains was a suicide attempt.
When things get extremely tense and dangerous, John and Pam spew more than a half-dozen f-words and s-words. That dozen or more profanities are joined by multiple uses of “a–hole,” “h—,” “bas–rd” and “d–mit.” God’s name is misused 10 times (four of those in combination with the word “d–n”).
Pam gives John a bottle of pain pills and he swallows several.
You can easily slip Infinite Storm into the survival cinema category. This film takes time to soak in the grandeur of majestic mountain vistas and then pounds its characters (and audience) with nature’s deadly rage. But there’s more to this pic than just a pair of accidental partners struggling to stay alive in a devastating snowstorm.
This is also a well-acted examination of the crippling effects of grief. It asks viewers to consider the idea that there is beauty and hope to be found even after incredibly terrible things happen. We must never give up, we’re told, no matter how painful or difficult our season of life.
Those are thoughts and emotional moments worth mulling. Other elements, however—such as lingering views of bloodied and tortured flesh and icy blasts of foul language—aren’t quite as uplifting. And you’ll be battered with them just as often. Only you can decide if that’s a storm worth weathering.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
