Snowbound: The Jim and Jennifer Stolpa Story (1994)

warning some parts of this review have spoiler material if you actually want to watch this movie before reading reviews don't read this until you have seen the movie.let me start off by saying that Jim must have not been very smart when it came to driving.Because all he ever did was keep getting both of them into a hole. The movie was way to predictable and the music sucked because every time they were in trouble it just seemed like they would play a really nice song. The reason why i say this movie was predictable is probably because the real Jim and Jennifer Stolpa should have predicted what would happen if you just drove into 2 feet deep snow,you'll get stuck. the actors were not extremely bad because they really got the stupidity down but they didn't even look like they really did when they show the real Jim and Jennifer Stolpa. But anyway it was a okay story to make a movie but i think it would be better if they made their own story that would be like the Jim and Jennifer Stolpa story but they shouldn't have used Jim and Jennifer Stolpas real story.

All the saccharine, lovey-dovey stuff at the start almost made me turn this movie off, but now I see that the screenwriter was just trying to show us the strong bonds that helped three people survive an unbelievable ordeal. Things started moving quickly as the father, taking his young family to join the rest of the clan, ignored weather reports and drove through a blizzard. The snow got worse and worse and finally they were stranded in the middle of nowhere. Their struggles to stay alive kept me awake when a lot of movies would have left me sleeping at the hour when this film was broadcast. I kept saying to myself "No one could survive this long in the bitter cold." Adding to the tension were the decisions: do they stay in the SUV, which offered shelter, but where they will eventually freeze, or do all three brave the elements and face a much surer and sooner extinction, with only the slim chance of finding help? Once they've made that fateful choice, which way do they walk and what if they pick the wrong way? Does father leave wife and baby to freeze in a cave while he's asked to walk 50 miles with frost-bitten feet to get help? Seven days in the cold seems too much for anyone, much less a baby, but somehow all 3 survived it. I wouldn't have believed any of it had I not known it was all true. Good acting, especially from Kelli Williams of TV's "The Practice" series. I can recommend this movie.

This is about as good as a made for TV movie gets. The screenplay goes back and forth from the young couple stranded in their truck in a vast, frozen, and deserted wasteland to the desperate parents trying to find them. The movie draws you in as the various authorities, like the California Highway Patrol, search for days when the couple go missing-- with no luck. Meanwhile, Jim, Jennifer, and their baby are in a desperate life or death situation. They are 50 miles from the nearest town on a back road, in a blizzard, and no one knows they are actually in Northern Nevada. There is no one to help them. No people at all just sagebrush, snow, and rock across a wintry dark and deserted high desert valley. Having lived in Northeast California, I can attest to the frozen desolation the Stolpas faced in Northern Nevada. This movie captures that scenery well with the on location shots. The story is interesting, the acting and writing is decent, and the scenery is beautiful. The ending is incredible! I recommend this movie!

SPOILER contained (although I would do you a favor if I... spoiled the film for you and thus prevented you from watching it!)It's hard to start describing the amount of stupidity and... corniness amassed in this TV-film. I thought the script-writer was aiming for the brain-dead section of TV-market until I saw the (real) Stolpas appearing in a picture at the end of the film. Was this a sign that they had given their consent for this film after watching it or were they just happy to... "be on the TV"? Anyway, to make things worse, the director makes every scene look so predictable that it really gets on your nerves. Sad to see Michael Gross (I) (of classic TV sitcom "Family Ties") play in this flick!