The film opens with an on-screen text about a married couple’s journey to Norway
to attend a small book tour, and what follows is based on true events.
We proceed to the next scene, which shows a snow-covered car.
A woman named Naomi wakes up inside to find that their car is now entirely covered in snow.
She attempts to open the car door to no avail. Naomi then wakes her husband Matt,
and he soon begins trying to pry open the door as well, but fails all the same.
Matt then tries to start the car to loosen the snow, but unfortunately the snow-covered engine
shows no sign of life. This prompts the 8-months pregnant Naomi to panic, while Matt attempts to
calm her down. When Matt is trying to open the back door, we can see that Naomi is starting
to lose her patience, and begins to blame her husband. According to Naomi, they should have
at least kept going for another 1 or 2 hours, so that they would have reached civilization by now,
as opposed to pulling over to rest in the middle of nowhere like this. However, Matt argues that
it was dangerous to keep going in the middle of a snowstorm in the middle of the night.
After their quarrell subsides, Naomi tries her old-school phone to look for help. But
because of course movie protagonists need to struggle, they are unable to get any service.
To make matters worse, her phone battery is at 50% meaning they need to save the battery,
just in case a miracle happens. Matt pulls out a map to estimate their whereabouts,
and tells her not to panic because another vehicle is bound to pass by at some point.
Matt does all he can to get his pregnant wife comfortable, and tries to get her to cheer up
by cracking a couple jokes amid the raging storm outside. He suddenly remembers that a rental guy
provided him with a set of roadside kit, of which he has with him in the car right now.
Matt digs around for things in his car and finds a blanket, a candle, along with several other items.
Meanwhile outside, the raging storm only seems to get worse.
Back inside the car, the pregnant Naomi now needs to take a piss, and due to the lack of
options she is forced to use a towel to take a piss inside the car. The couple then
take out the food they packed for the trip and tries to ration them because they have no clue
how much longer they’d be stuck here. After sorting the food, Naomi deduces that they only
have food to last 12 days at most. Matt suggests that they should take the chocolate they have with
them into account but Naomi objects because she promised to hand the chocolate to her sister.
Seeing that things are getting bleaker by the second, Naomi asks her husband to
break the glass and dig their way out. Matt is against this because they don’t
know how bad things are out there, not to mention the freezing temperature. Therefore,
Matt would rather they stay in the car and try to hold on with the food they have with them.
This statement appears to vex Naomi and the two begin to argue. In the end, Naomi relents.
Long story short, they have now been stuck in the car for four days,
and the temperature outside only seems to get colder. To keep the food supply from running out,
Matt decides to only eat a little. He puts forth his pregnant wife’s condition
because obviously she needs to food more than he does.
When Matt is asleep, he accidentally tips over their water supply. Matt gets upset that his wife forgot
to put the cap back on, and they almost get into another argument, but he manages to keep his calm.
While the two are asleep, they are woken up by the sound of footsteps walking over the car.
The two brighten up and appear hopeful, but their pleads for help are for some reason left ignored.
Naomi gets desperate while Matt calms her down by telling her everything is going to be alright.
It is now day 7. After a week stuck inside this snow-covered car,
Matt now attempts to break open the car window by heating up the gaps on a window with a candle.
Naomi who has nothing to do decides to toy with her phone and accidentally drops it,
cracking it open and the battery falls off. She puts her phone back together and thankfully it
still works just fine. Unexpectedly, she realizes that they now have cell service. Naomi immediately
calls her father and tearfully begins rambling about how they are stuck under a pile of snow
and need immediate help. But unfortunately the phone dies soon after due to low battery.
Matt is a little upset as to why Naomi did not inform him that they had service.
He claims that he could have provided information regarding their exact whereabouts.
On day 9, Naomi expresses how she regrets taking their little trip for the book tour
for it puts them in such predicament instead. She reminds Matt to eat,
though he still insists on eating leaving most of his food for his wife and his future child.
Naomi asks Matt to break the car window but Matt still objects because he’s convinced that once
the window breaks they would have no shelter left. It is now day 11. It appears the storm has started
to dissipate. Naomi has started to lose hope and asks her husband to write a letter in case they do
not make it. Matt gets a little irritated and is still optimistic that they will make it out alive.
Not long after, they hear the sound of a snow clearing vehicle passing by.
Unfortunately they are not able to do anything and the car passes by them.
Matt’s optimistic facade falters and he breaks down crying. It is now Naomi’s turn to soothe him.
Day 15. After 2 weeks stuck inside the car, they have now run out of water since
a few days ago. Matt attempts to take some ice from outside for them to drink. Their bodies
are now growing weak due to the lack of food, though they still have a little left.
At night, Naomi is woken up by a surge of pain.
She takes off her layers of clothing and with ragged breathing she takes off the headrest.
She then uses it to break the car window, of which Matt has opened a little earlier.
Matt is woken up by the commotion and begins trying to calm his wife down.
After she does, Matt realizes that his wife is having a contraction. In other words Matt suspects
that she may soon be in labor. Naomi looks scared, for neither of them is medically trained.
With her husband’s aid, Naomi struggles to push out the child.
Miraculously a healthy baby girl is born.
The couple rejoice. In spite of all odds, they managed to deliver the baby safely.
Matt then takes the placenta and tucks it inside a box. Day 17. The small family somehow appear
calm and they have named their baby girl Olivia. On day 20, Matt’s health begins to
deteriorate due to the freezing temperature and the lack of food he’s been consuming.
Unwilling to see his baby girl get cold, Matt takes off his jacket and uses it to warm up
Olivia instead. With his ever-weakening strength he keeps digging the ice by the side of the car.
It doesn’t take long before he grows exhausted and starts feeling hot despite the freezing
temperature, signifying that he has hypothermia.
He falls asleep without a coat to keep him warm.
On the next day, Naomi asks Matt to fetch her some water but she doesn’t
hear a response. Naomi decides to check up on him, thinking that he is merely asleep.
Upon noticing how still he is, Naomi soon realizes that her husband has passed in his sleep. She has
now lost the man she loves and baby Olivia has lost a man who would have been a loving father.
Without her husband, Naomi now struggles to even fetch some water. Their food supply has completely
depleted and she is rendered desperate. She is now willing to eat anything to survive.
At night, Naomi hears the sound of a car passing in the distance. As per usual,
she is unable to do anything about it which only gets her upset. The baby begins to cry out of
hunger and Naomi rushes to nurse her. However, no milk comes out because she is starving and unwell.
This only gets her more desperate and she resorts to eating her own placenta.
She thankfully manages to lactate again and her baby is safe from starvation for now.
Later that night, Naomi lays beside her husband’s dead body
and begins talking to herself presumably out of depression and starvation. She takes off Matt’s
shirt and puts it over Olivia to warm her up. The next morning marks the 24th day. Sunlight
permeates inside the car and Naomi is woken up by a water drop. She realizes that the
ice has thinned out.
Without further ado, Naomi begins to dig through the thin ice.
Relief washes over her at the sight of bright skies above her after being stuck
under the ice for so long. She immediately salvages what little she can carry with her
and puts her baby inside a bag. Before Naomi sets off,
she bittersweetly says her goodbye to her husband.
She then begins to pace through the empty snowy road without a clue where to go.
On her way, she sees a road sign that informs her about a civilization nearby.
Naomi keeps on walking with her baby. She walks for hours until the sun
is about to set and finally smiles upon the sight of a building in front of her.
The film ends with a text saying that Naomi and her baby were taken to a local hospital nearby.
The experts believe that they were able to survive because of the “igloo effect”,
which protected them from the elements and contained whatever heat that they generated.
Today Naomi still actively writes and she dedicates all of her works to her late husband.