Parents' Guide to The Girl on the Mountain

This is a heartfelt drama that ultimately falls short. The Girl on the Mountain tries to combine a story about redemption and purpose with action movie violence and thriller movie conflict. The story of the bond that forms between a broken man living off the grid in the mountains and a young girl running away from an abusive household is unfortunately marred by plot holes and lapses in story logic. For instance, it's not clearly established why exactly the villain is going to such lengths to track down a daughter he so clearly despises. Or why a conductor in the middle of a big recital in front of a packed house is expected to stop everything on this day of all days in order to pick up his daughter from school, or why this important recital is happening on a weekday afternoon.

It's clearly an earnest movie trying to express a deeper message, and it works best when the two main characters find each other in the aftermath of trauma. But this part of the story is eventually and perhaps inevitably jettisoned for the clichés of survivalist action movies: booby traps in the woods, pointed sticks stabbing chests, bad guys pointing guns to heads with the expected "Put your rifle down or the girl gets it!" dialogue. In the end, none of it really adds up, and while limited budgets and production values don't always mean poor-quality movies, the low budget in this case adds to the shortcomings.