The inspiring story of Donn Fendler, the 12-year-old boy who survived a nine-day-long trek through the Katahdin Wilderness after being separated from his family on a hike to the summit, has been a staple of Maine high-school reading lists ever since it was put to paper in 1939. The newly-released film adaptation, a collaboration between a newly formed production studio and a big-name Hollywood star Sylvester Stallone, likewise gets lost in the fog on its ascent to the summit of cinematic excellence, but stumbles home without too much bruising to deliver a largely competent and satisfying dramatization that audiences should find moving.
The film was co-produced by Stallone’s Balboa Productions and Great Mountain Productions and has been in the making for ten years. Director Andrew Boodhoo-Kightlinger, whose previous credits consist of generally well-received independent dramas including “Tater Tot & Patton”, casts the talented Luke Blumm as protagonist Donn Fendler to deliver a touching tale that combines the appeal of its wild setting and narratives of personal growth and survival against overwhelming odds with a hint of the supernatural.
The opening scene depicts Donn and his siblings joyfully playing in a stream, establishing their– Donn’s in particular– fondness for the outdoors. The cozy family home, the boys returning in the vintage car and the daily goings-on of the Fendler family is punctuated by episodes of ultimately inconsequential bickering between siblings, which creates an idyllic and nostalgic opening sequence far removed from what lies ahead.
Donn’s troubled relationship with his father and siblings is a theme that the movie tries to maintain throughout the boy’s wilderness journey, with a fight between brothers being the reason he gets separated from the trail in the first place. However, a convincing backstory is something that seems to have been left at the trailhead. We are told that his father, Donald, wants to “make a man out of him” but not the reason why his son is apparently a disappointment or the amount of time the father devotes to his demanding “work” which result in the cancellation of a planned two-week-long fishing trip in favor of a weekend jaunt to Katahdin. By all accounts, Donn’s relationship with his father was trouble-free in real life – it is one thing to miss the mark when recounting true details, especially if the presence of a genuinely abusive relationship dynamic requires a spot of sugarcoating to come in under the PG rating, but to flub a fictionalized bit of extra fluff is harder to excuse.
Also, a throwaway aside is the radio broadcast audible during the car ride home, which details the free world coming under threat in the leadup to World War II. This theme, which was clearly intended to have modern relevance, is not translated into a meaningful lesson on how anything Donn experiences can prepare one for an increasingly unstable world.
And so off the family went on their “consolation prize” holiday to Katahdin. After exchanging campfire stories about “Pamola,” the vengeful deity with the head of a moose and the wings of an eagle that is said to guard Katahdin’s summit in Penobscot Indian mythology, the climb commenced. Filmed using a combination of aerial shots of the real mountain, footage from the Catskill Mountains of New York, and a fake mountain peak built in a sound stage, the scenes, while technically competent in camerawork and effects, are strung together in a disjointed manner that doesn’t hide very well the fact that they were working with multiple locations, lessening the immersion of the viewer.
Caught in a ferocious storm, the father decides to turn back, but after Donn pleads to let him prove himself, he begrudgingly allows him and two of his brothers to continue onwards to the summit. After successfully summiting, a sibling fight on the way down causes Donn to leave in a huff and scamper off down the trail — or at least, what he thought was the trail. As he descends the peak towards a vast expanse of untamed wilderness, the quality of the cinematography ascends from its rocky start, and the film begins to hit its stride.
Donn’s bittersweet journey through the woods — in which he tests his basic survival skills with varying degrees of success, as well as reveling in his newfound freedom from his “earthly” ties — is the best part of the film. Still, his efforts to overcome the struggles he faces are perhaps not as emphasized as they should have been. In the absence of the director hitting upon a novel method for telling a survival story, taking a few more pages out of its book would have really helped it shine.
The shine in Donn’s eyes, on the other hand, begins to fade as the reality of cold and hunger sets in several days into his ordeal, but not before the film pulls off some nice motifs, such as Donn being karmically swarmed with clegs the second after he spits on the ground — something his father previously warned him against doing. Now truly starving and weak, he begins to make peace with death until Pamola visits him in a fever dream, not as the bloodthirsty monster he was warned about by the light of the campfire, but as a benevolent, guiding spirit. In a subsequent hunger-induced hallucination, he makes amends with his father, who in real life is frantically searching the woods for his son, and runs towards his image. Snapping back to reality, he finds himself finally back in civilization and calls the first person he sees for help.
All in all, in spite of its unrealized potential, janky structure at times and failure to tie together the loose ends of its deeper themes, “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” is a touching movie that is sure to entertain. It is worth a watch for anybody with an interest in the outdoors or who previously read the novel.
“Lost on a Mountain in Maine” will be playing at Black Bear Cinemas in Orono until at least Nov. 14. Tickets for most films, including this one, are free for UMaine students every Wednesday with the presentation of a Student ID.
